Prashant Reddy

T. Prashant Reddy graduated from the National Law School of India University, Bangalore, with a B.A.LLB (Hons.) degree in 2008. He later graduated with a LLM degree (Law, Science & Technology) from the Stanford Law School in 2013. Prashant has worked with law firms in Delhi and in academia in India and Singapore. He is also co-author of the book Create, Copy, Disrupt: India's Intellectual Property Dilemmas (OUP).

The IMI-Deloitte Report on the Indian Music Industry: Can Piracy Still Be a Problem in a World of Free Music?

by Prashant Reddy September 11, 2019

On Gandhi, Malamud and the JNU Data Depot

by Prashant Reddy September 7, 2019

5 Comments

In response to my piece on the ‘JNU data depot’, I received a couple of emails from Carl Malamud alleging factual inaccuracies in my piece. I invited him to respond to the errors on SpicyIP, in response to which he started to abuse me. When I told him, I was going to publish the abusive email on SpicyIP, he apologized and the next day withdrew the apology in another abusive email. He then publicly attacked SpicyIP on Twitter. I find…

Malamud’s New TDM Venture May Not be Shielded by Section 52 of the Copyright Act

by Prashant Reddy August 22, 2019

1 Comment

Carl Malamud is at it again, riling up copyright owners and setting the stage for yet another lawsuit on a fascinating copyright issue. His latest effort to ‘liberate’ copyrighted information from scientific publishers is an enterprising venture, called the ‘JNU Data Depot’ which is based out of the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and which was the subject of an excellent report by Priyanka Pulla in Nature. In the past, Malamud has provoked a firestorm of a debate in multiple jurisdictions,…

Patent

A Second Opposition Is Filed Against Janssen’s Patent Application For The Fumarate Salt Form of Bedaquiline

by Prashant Reddy February 10, 2019

4 Comments

Multiple news outlets recently reported about a pre-grant patent opposition filed by two TB survivors, with support from MSF, against a patent application filed by Janssen for a salt form of its experimental TB drug bedaquiline. In a press note put out by MSF, it was claimed that this opposition “…is the first ever challenge against a TB drug patent in India”. This is a factually incorrect statement. The patent application under challenge, as per Sandeep Rathod’s analysis of the…

Patent

Supreme Court Saves Monsanto From Its Own “Incomprehensible” Legal Strategy

by Prashant Reddy January 8, 2019

1 Comment

In a judgment delivered today, the Supreme Court set aside the judgment of a Division Bench of the Delhi High Court which had revoked Monsanto’s patent and remanded the matter to the trial court. The issue of patent validity remains open and has not been decided by the court, as has been wrongly reported by the media. This litigation had kicked off in 2015 with Monsanto winning at the interim stage before the trial court followed by it losing grandly…

Biological Diversity

The Uttarakhand High Court’s Flight of Fancy While Interpreting the Biological Diversity Act

by Prashant Reddy December 31, 2018

1 Comment

In a judgment delivered on December 21, 2018 a judge of the Uttarakhand High Court ruled that Divya Pharmacy, an Indian company that manufactures Ayurvedic medicines, will be subject to the benefit sharing obligations under the Biological Diversity Act. As a result, Divya Pharmacy will be required to make payments to the Uttarakhand State Biodiversity Board as per the rates laid down in the Access and Benefit Sharing Guidelines, 2014. Like many other Indian companies, Divya Pharmacy had taken the…

Biological Diversity

India’s Biodiversity Law Has Turned Out to Be a Nightmare for Scientists and Businesses – Parliament Should Repeal It

by Prashant Reddy November 28, 2018

1 Comment

Earlier this year, a group of primarily Indian scientists stirred a pot a bit when they published a piece in Science on how the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) is a ‘cure’ that ‘kills’ because it has made biodiversity research quite complicated. The argument put forth by these scientists is that the CBD was inspired by unrealistic expectations regarding the commercial value of their biological resources and that the fences erected by national legislation (in pursuance of the CBD) have…

Others

Bench Fixing Allegations Haunt Trademark Litigation Before the Delhi District Courts

by Prashant Reddy November 11, 2018

The Government Moots Proposal to Amend Sports Broadcasting Law – Deadline for Comments is December 31, 2018

by Prashant Reddy November 11, 2018

2 Comments

Since the dawn of private sports broadcasting in the early nineties, private broadcasters and Prasar Bharti, which is the government owned broadcaster, have been constantly squabbling over the sharing of broadcast signals of international cricket matches featuring Team India which is officially owned by the Board of Cricket Control of India (BCCI). Boria Majumdar has a very interesting account of these early battles in this article published in Open. These disputes often end up before the Supreme Court which in…

Drug Regulation

The Hindu Discovers That Indian Patients Have Not Been Informed of Bedaquiline’s Side-Effects

by Prashant Reddy October 23, 2018