Author name: Mathews P. George

Mathews is a graduate of National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata. He pursued LLM in 'IP and Competition Law' from the 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).

South African Competition Commission on excessive pricing of breast cancer treatment drug

/ By / Others

On 8 February 2022, the Competition Commission of South Africa filed a referral with the Competition Tribunal for prosecution of Roche on alleged excessive pricing of its breast cancer treatment drug, Trastuzumab. The Commission cited contravention of Section 8(1)(a) of the South African Competition Act. “8. Abuse of dominance prohibited (1) It is prohibited for a dominant firm to— (a) charge an excessive price to the detriment of consumers or customers; …… (2) If there is a prima facie case …

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Novex Communications Pvt. Ltd. v. DXC Technology Private Limited – Analysis II

/ By / Copyright

Earlier Posts: Summary and Analysis I Is it mandatory to be a member of copyright society to carry out the business of issuing or granting licences in respect of literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works incorporated in a cinematograph film or sound recordings? I am of the view that the copyright framework gives authors and owners of right an option to join or not join a copyright society in order to conduct the business of issuing or granting licences in …

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Novex Communications Pvt. Ltd. v. DXC Technology Private Limited – Analysis I

/ By / Copyright, Others

For summary of the case, click here. Section 33 and Business of granting licenses through Copyright Societies 33. Registration of Copyright society.— (1) No person or association of persons shall, after coming into force of the Copyright (Amendment) Act, 1994 (38 of 1994) commence or, carry on the business of issuing or granting licences in respect of any work in which copyright subsists or in respect of any other rights conferred by this Act except under or in accordance with …

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Novex Communications Pvt. Ltd. v. DXC Technology Private Limited – Summarising the judgment (Part I)

/ By / Others

On 8 December 2021, the Madras High Court delivered an important judgment concerning copyright law. The High Court held that the business of granting copyright licenses can be carried out only through the copyright societies. Finding that Novex Communications (the assignee of the copyright) did not fall within the definition of the copyright society, the High Court dismissed its petition seeking for damages and injunction. (paragraph 48) I intend to critically analyse this judgment. In the first post, I shall …

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Supreme Court Dismisses a Transfer Petition Filed In a Trademark Dispute

/ By / Trademark

This post discusses the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Rajkumar Sabu v. M/S Sabu Trade Private Limited. Background The petitioner, claiming to be the owner of the mark ‘SACHAMOTI’, filed a suit against the respondent before the Delhi High Court in 2016 alleging infringement and passing off by the respondent. The respondent filed a private complaint in 2016 against the petitioner before the Judicial Magistrate No. IV, Salem under Section 420 of the Indian Penal Code (Cheating and dishonestly inducing …

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DCGI Draws Ire of Delhi High Court for Violating the RTI Act

/ By / Drug Regulation, Others

The Single Bench of the Delhi High Court headed by Justice Pratibha Singh, in its recent order in Prashant Reddy v DCGI, came down heavily on the drug regulator for egregious violation of the Right to Information Act. The case arose in relation to the report of Dr. T.M. Mohapatra Committee, a committee which was constituted by the Drugs Controller General of India pursuant to the scathing criticisms in the 59th Parliamentary Standing Committee Report on the existing mechanism for …

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Tenability of Passing Off Action against ‘Covishield’ Vaccine of Serum Institute of India

/ By / COVID-19, Trademark

As you are aware of, Covishield, the vaccine candidate of Serum Institute of India was approved by Drug Controller General of India for restricted emergency use today. Pertinently, a passing off suit was filed against Serum Institute of India by a Nanded-based pharmaceutical company Cutis Biotech last month, which claimed to be the lawful and the prior user of the trade name ‘Covishield’. The trademark applications, which were filed by the Cutis Biotech and the Serum Institute of India, are …

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Update: Wuhan Court Rejects Application to Reconsider Anti-Suit Injunction Granted in Favour of Xiaomi

/ By / Patent

We had earlier extensively covered the development involving anti-suit injunction granted by the Wuhan Intermediate People’s Court and the anti-anti-suit injunction granted by the Delhi High Court with regard to the SEP dispute between InterDigital and Xiaomi (see here, here and here). As we could gather from here, InterDigital had filed an application before the Wuhan Intermediate People’s Court to reconsider the anti-suit injunction granted in favour of Xiaomi. The application was, however, rejected by the Wuhan Court.

The Issue of Sovereignty and Grant of Patents in Anti-Anti-Suit Injunction Issued by Delhi High Court

/ By / Patent

SpicyIP recently reported on the Delhi High Court judgment in a SEP dispute where an anti-anti-suit injunction was issued against the anti-suit injunction issued by the Wuhan Court (Interdigital v Xiaomi). There are already two posts on this issue (here and here). My post intends to focus only on one issue, which I consider to be highly relevant. According to me, the issue on the grant of patent by the sovereign that I am discussing, did not get the deserved …

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Sisvel v Haier: SEP Case Law from Germany

/ By / Others, Patent

The SEP negotiation framework is a multi-faceted one since it involves Patent Law, Competition Law and Contract Law considerations. India does not have a SEP negotiation framework like the one laid down by the CJEU in Huawei v ZTE. [The Delhi High Court, in Ericsson v CCI, has made a reference to the CJEU judgment in Huawei v ZTE]. It is not that the CJEU judgment has removed all the ambiguities in the SEP negotiation framework. On the other hand, …

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