Author name: 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).

DIPP Appoints ‘Technical Members’ to IPAB – Legality under Doubt

/ By / Copyright, Patent, Trademark

Last night, Anushree Rauta of the IPRMENTLAW blog, made public an order of the Appointment Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) clearing the decks for the appointment of five technical members to the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB). The order is dated July 21, 2020. Of the five members, Joint Controller B.P. Singh has been appointed as Technical Member for Patents; Advocates Lakshmidevi Somanath and Vijaykumar have been selected for the posts of Technical Members for Trademarks and Advocates N. Surya …

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Breaking News: Controller General’s Office Agrees with Our Petition for Scrapping the Intellectual Property Appellate Board

/ By / Others

A few months ago, in May, I had sent a petition to the Ministry of Commerce, along with Rahul Bajaj, asking it to consider shutting down the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB). We had argued that not only was the IPAB non-functional for a long time but it was also poorly designed, especially with regard to the post of the ‘technical member’. Rather than continuing with this broken model, we recommended that the existing functions of the IPAB be shifted …

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The Fortunes of Indian Copyright Societies

/ By / Copyright

A few years ago in 2018, I had written about the financial state of Indian copyright societies dealing with music. At the time, things were not looking well for the two main copyright societies in the music industry, which are the Indian Performing Rights Societies (IPRS) and the Phonographic Performance Ltd. (PPL). While IPRS collects royalties for use of music and lyrics, PPL collects royalties for use of the sound recordings. The revenues for both copyright societies at the time …

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IDMA Sues the Central Government over ‘Missing’ Technical Member for Patent Cases at the IPAB

/ By / Patent

Almost a year after the Delhi High Court’s bizarre order in the Mylan case, the Indian Drug Manufacturer’s Association (IDMA), represented by Advocate Guruswamy Natraj has sued the Central Government over the missing technical member for patent matters on the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB). The case number is W.P. 4430 of 2020. This lawsuit appears to be part of a ritual undertaken before the Delhi High Court every few years where the government is dragged to court due to …

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A Petition to Shutdown the IPAB and Shift Its Functions to High Courts and Commercial Courts

/ By / Copyright, Others, Patent, Plant Variety Protection, Trademark

A few weeks ago we had an interesting series of posts on SpicyIP, debating the role of the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB) and whether it should continue to exist. Along with our former blogger Rahul Bajaj, who is currently a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, I have drafted the petition below requesting the government to consider a proposal to scrap the IPAB and transfer its functions back to commercial courts and High Courts. We intend to send it to the …

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Cross-Border Data Flows in WTO Law: Moving Towards an Open, Secure and Privacy-Compliant Data Governance Framework

/ By / Others, Privacy

We have for our readers today an invited guest post from Neha Mishra, currently a post-doctoral fellow at the Centre for International Law, National University of Singapore. Neha earned her BA.LLB degree from NLS Bangalore several years ago (where we were classmates) after which she practised law briefly in London and India. She then went on to collect degrees in law and public policy from the London School of Economics, National University of Singapore and finally a PhD from Melbourne …

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Former IPAB Chairperson Supports the Scrapping of IPAB, while IP Lawyers Continue to Live in Denial

/ By / Others

Last week, Arun responded to my piece to shut down the IPAB and shift back its functions to the High Courts. I am not surprised – Arun’s firm makes a healthy living by filing matters before the IPAB. I have been speaking to several other people on this issue including former Chairperson of the IPAB, Justice Prabha Sridevan who was kind enough to point me to an opinion piece she wrote many years ago in the Hindu calling for the …

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The Case for Shutting Down the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB)

/ By / Others

(This post has been co-authored with Prannv Dhawan, 3rd year B.A. LL.B. (Hons.) student at  NLSIU, Bangalore) This year marks the 17th year of existence of the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB) and in this post, we are going to lay down a case for shutting down the IPAB and transferring its powers and case-load back to High Courts. Originally setup under the Trade Marks Act, 1999 to hear appeals against the trade mark registry, as well as rectification petitions …

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A Weak Case against America’s Suspension of GSP Benefits for India?

/ By / Others

I read with interest, and some puzzlement, Srividya’s speedy rebuttal to my post yesterday where she examines America’s case for suspending GSP benefits. It is in keeping with a tradition that we have where I write a piece and she responds to a couple of lines from my piece. Please click here for the previous edition. I am not quite sure how we went from discussing Bayer’s licensing woes to COVID-19 and food shortages but since the door has been …

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End of the Road for Bt Licensing Royalties in India

/ By / Patent

Reuters recently reported that the Government of India has “axed” the royalties that over 45 Indian seed companies had to pay Bayer (which acquired Monsanto) under IP licensing agreements which have been the centre of a massive legal dispute between Monsanto (before its acquisition by Bayer) and Nuziveedu (one of India’s biggest seed companies) for the last five years. For years, the Bt licensing agreements have earned Monsanto a fortune. While I don’t have the figures readily at hand, a …

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