Author name: Mathews P. George

Mathews is a graduate of West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata. He pursued LLM in 'IP and Competition Law' from the Munich Intellectual Property Law Centre (a joint collaboration of Max Plank Institute for Innovation and Competition, University of Augsburg, Technical University of Munich and George Washington University, Washington). His areas of practice include Technology Law in general (IPR, Competition Law, Data Protection Law etc) Corporate Law, Contract Law and Public Law (Constitutional Law and Criminal Law). He practises law and policy at both national and international levels. Presently, he is in Kerala. In addition to litigation before various courts in Kerala, he is also involved in various national and international policy and academic initiatives.

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.

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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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Functionality in Copyright Law : In the light of a recent EU Case Law

/ By / Copyright, Others

In this post, I would like to discuss a recent judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in Brompton Bicycle (C-833/18). This judgment is relevant in the context of Section 52(1)(w) of India’s Copyright Act which provides as follows: “The following acts shall not constitute an infringement of copyright, namely:- (w) the making of a three-dimensional object from a two-dimensional artistic work, such as a technical drawing, for the purposes of industrial application of any purely

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Discussion on Fundamentals of ‘Authorship’: Copyright System v. Author’s Rights System

/ By / Copyright

The digital world is challenging the fundamental norms of IP laws. This calls for a new perspective on IP as a whole and copyright law in particular. This post offers some thoughts in the context of an article titled ‘Musician uses algorithm to generate every possible melody to prevent copyright lawsuits’ and another article which deals with the usage of AI for emulating the styles of great painters such as Van Gogh, Turner and Vermeer. What are the fundamental principles

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The Delhi High Court and an Anti-Suit Injunction – Part II

/ By / Trademark

[Please read Part I of this two-part post for the summary of the judgment discussed herein] Introduction I am unable to agree with the judgment of Delhi High Court on various counts. At the outset, this is an ex-parte proceeding. The evidentiary threshold, as held by the Supreme Court in Ramesh Chand Ardawatiya v. Anil Panjwani (AIR 2003 SC 2508), is as follows: “33. ………In the absence of denial of plaint averments the burden of proof on the plaintiff is

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