Mathews P. George

Mathews is a graduate of National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata. His interest in intellectual property was kindled when he bagged the second position in his second year of Law School (in the prestigious Nani Palkhiwala Essay Competition on Intellectual Property). His stint as a student of Prof. Shamnad Basheer further accentuated his interest in intellectual property. Winner of almost a dozen essay competitions in his Law School days, he was involved in various research and policy initiatives relating to intellectual property. Mathews is, currently, based out of Munich, Germany. He had earlier done his LLM in 'IP and Competition Law' from Munich Intellectual Property Law Centre (jointly run by Max Plank Institute for Innovation and Competition, University of Augsburg, Technical University of Munich and George Washington University, Washington).

Internet Fraud: Bogus Open Access Journals

by Mathews P. George October 16, 2012

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Another ingenious internet fraud is on the rise – fraud committed in the name of Open Access (“OA”) journals. Unlike subscription-based journals, OA journals are those which are freely accessible online. The business model revolves around the author-pay mode — where researchers pay for publishing their work. [The Hindu report is available here.] Broadly speaking, the modus operandi is to send mails to researchers and scientists soliciting manuscripts. They try to entice researchers by keeping the processing fee low….

SC on the new drug policy

by Mathews P. George October 7, 2012

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The Supreme Court on last Wednesday gave the government a week to come up with a timeline for implementing its new drug-pricing policy. In the event of failure to comply with the Order, the Court will issue an interim order placing all the 348 medicines within the ambit of price-cap regime based on a product’s manufacturing cost. [See herefor Livemint report.] I blogged on the issue earlier. [See here.] The Group of Ministers (GoM), headed by Agriculture Minister Mr. Sharad…

GoI criticised for failing to finalise the drug policy

by Mathews P. George September 26, 2012

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The Supreme Courtcriticised the government for failing to finalise the drug pricing policy which has been pending since 2003. [For Deccan Herald (“DH”) news report, see here] According to DH, the Court remarked that the issue which has been pending since 2003 was a “slur on the face of all stake-holders”. The Additional Solicitor General Sidharth Luthra reportedly submitted that the Group of Ministers (“GoM”) which discussed the proposed drug policy in its meetings could not arrive at a final…

‘A lawyer appearing before IPAB should wear the cap of an IP Practitioner’

by Mathews P. George September 20, 2012

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Justice Prabha Sridevan, Chairperson of the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (“IPAB”), was interviewed by ‘Managing Intellectual Property’ [available here]. She made quite a few pertinent remarks on the functioning of IPAB, role of litigants in the system, her post-retirement plans etc. She rightly observed in the interview that the tribunal has started drawing greater international attention. She exhorted the lawyers to approach IPAB in a different manner viz., by putting the cap of an IP practitioner and not by wearing…

Trademark

Removal of AYUR from trademark registry

by Mathews P. George July 12, 2012

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The Intellectual Property Appellate Board (“IPAB”) affirmed the removal of the mark “AYUR” while deciding on an appeal against the impugned Order of the Registry granting registration for the trade mark “AYURTHEERAM” in favour of respondent (M/s. Alex Resorts and Hotels Pvt. Ltd) for the services “Ayurveda Hospital and Resorts” (included in class 42) subject to confining the services in the States of Kerala and Karnataka. [The Order is available here.] The respondent claimed before the Registry to be the…

Trademark

Removal of ‘Manjal’ from Registry – Update

by Mathews P. George June 10, 2012

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Business Line reportedthe restoration of status quo by the Madras High Court in the dispute regarding the removal of ‘Manjal’ from the trademarks register. As per the report, the Madras High Court passed an (interim) order staying the impugned order dated January 21, 2011 passed by the Deputy Registrar and issued notice to the Deputy Registrar and Divine Pharmaceuticals. As I could gather, the Court granted the interim stay while the matter came up for admission. I had earlier covered…

Trademark

Note on Delhi HC judgment in Lt Foods Ltd v. Sunstar Overseas Ltd &Anr.

by Mathews P. George June 5, 2012

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The Delhi HC, in Lt Foods Ltd v. Sunstar Overseas Ltd &Anr., decided on a bunch of interim applications filed by the parties in the cross-suits, seeking injunction against each other. The parties, in the instant case, claimed ownership rights over the mark “HERITAGE” used in respect of rice. While plaintiff claimed to be the user of the mark since 1997, the defendant claimed to be the user from 1985.The parties did not dispute that the marks used by them…

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An Introduction to the recent Frontline issue on Indian Patent Law

by Mathews P. George April 30, 2012

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Frontline, in a series of articles its recent issue, discussed the recent developments in Indian Patent Law and its reverberations in the pharmaceutical industry and public health [ ‘Patent to plunder’ by Amit Sengupta, ‘A big step forward’ by C.P. Chandrasekhar, ‘Patents and the law’ by V. Venkatesan, ‘A welcome first’ by T.K. Rajalakshmi, ‘Western warnings’ by R. Ramachandran, ‘Question of efficacy’ by Leena Menghaney, ‘The current patent system is deeply flawed’, interview with Prof. Shamnad Basheer and ‘Drug and…

CIC on RTI Act and Copyright

by Mathews P. George April 1, 2012

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The Central Information Commission, in Ms.SakshiMathur v. Ministry of Health and Family, decided on the issue of disclosure of certified copy of question booklet of AIIMS-MBBS Entrance Examination, 2011 and the corresponding answer key. The Public Information Commissioner of AIIMS had initially refused the disclosure inter alia on the ground that the questions and answers were the intellectual property of AIIMS and exempted from disclosure under the Right to Information Act (“RTI Act”). SaiVinod had earlier blogged on IIM’s Copyright…

Delhi HC on Customs Order restricting the clearance of consignments

by Mathews P. George February 9, 2012

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The Delhi High Court, in its recent judgment in Kingtech Electronics (India) Pvt. Ltd v. Union of India and Ors, once again stayed the Order of the Commissioner of Customs restricting the clearance of consignments which, as per the latter’s determination allegedly violated the patent rights of Ericsson (Respondent No. 4). In coming to this conclusion, the Delhi High Court relied on the earlier flawed judgment by Justice Manmohan Singh in the LG case which was analysed here. The petitioner,…

Aparajita Lath { Hi Pranab, Thanks for your comment and for explaining the issues involved with 'explainability'. There is a tension between adoption of advanced ML technology and public trust and... }
Lokesh Vyas { Thanks, Aaradhya for your kind words. We really appreciate it. }
Pranab Salian { "Explainability" is the concept that a machine learning (ML) model and its output can be explained in human language terms in a way that makes sense to a... }
Mathews P. George { Thank you, Eashan and Shobith. I updated the post to reflect our discussion. }
Mathews P. George { Thank you for your comments. IP valuation is a tricky business. Even though there are various methods for IP valuation, it may be the case that many IP... }