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).

MD of Universal Music Publishing slams the radio industry – calls them “parasites”

/ By / Copyright

The music and radio industries have never been the best of buddies anywhere in the world, especially in India. In a fiery piece published on the online news portal – Radio & Music – Achille Forler, the Managing Director of Universal Music Publishing slams the radio industry for being “parasites” and living off the music industry. Forler, has every reason to be infuriated with the radio industry, especially since the radio industry has been comprehensively thrashing the music industry in […]

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Selective reporting by the Business Standard, the Hindu and the Financial Express in the Kibow patent litigation

/ By / Patent

The Business Standard, the Hindu and the Financial Express carried similar stories on a recent decision of the IPAB, dated November 13, 2013 revoking Indian patent no: 205478 belonging to Kibow Biotech Inc. for “Prebiotic and Probiotic Compositions and Methods for their Use in Gut-Based Therapies” on the basis of a petition filed by La Renon Health Care Pvt. Ltd. an Indian company based out of Gujarat. The order can be accessed over here. However all three newspapers failed to

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Justice Sridevan’s first public criticism of the IPAB after retirement

/ By / Uncategorized

The Hindu today published a candid editorial by Justice Prabha Sridevan lamenting the lack of independence for judicial tribunals like the IPAB. This op-ed is particularly significant because Justice Sridevan used to be the Chairperson of the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB), until her retirement recently. During her eventful tenure at the IPAB, Justice Sridevan submitted at least two damning reports to the Madras High Court on the lack of resources and the lack of judicial independence at the IPAB.

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Cadbury loses 4 ‘Éclair’ related trademarks in a curious litigation

/ By / Trademark

In a recent, widely reported order by S. Usha, the Vice-Chairperson of the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB), Cadbury’s lost 4 of its éclair related trademarks on the basis of rectification petitions made by ITC. The catalyst for the rectification petitions was a civil suit for trademark infringement filed by Cadbury, in 2005, against ITC with a prayer for an injunction restraining ITC using the word ‘éclair’ in conjunction with ITC’s trademarks. In a counter to the trademark infringement suit,

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IPAB Member S. Ravi accuses Trade Marks Registry of ‘circumventing’ the law in the Sony case with ‘clever’ & ‘phoney’ reasoning

/ By / Trademark

In an Order dated the 25th of October, 2013 the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB), through its Technical Member S. Ravi allowed an appeal against the order of Deputy Registrar M.C. Gupta refusing an opposition filed by Sony Corporation against trademark application No. 1255896 filed by Kolkata based textile firm, AB Textiles, for the label that is pictured on the left. The label contains the words ABT and Sony on a blue background. (The order can be accessed over here)

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An initiative to kill the Knowledge Initiative on Agriculture

/ By / Biological Diversity

While the Indo-U.S. civil nuclear agreement continues to flounder in the ‘Intensive Care Unit’ of the Prime Minister’s Office, Indian bureaucrats look all set to kill yet another high level Indo-U.S. bilateral agreement called the Knowledge Initiative on Agriculture (KIA). The KIA which was announced on July 18, 2005 by the then U.S. President George Bush and the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was intended to  facilitate technology transfer and research in the field of Indian agriculture. The aim of

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Ranbaxy finally gets approval for Synriam – Can it keep out the competition?

/ By / Data Exclusivity, Drug Regulation, Innovation, Patent

The Mint and other Indian media outlets have reported that India’s drug regulator has finally given marketing approval to Ranbaxy for its new anti-malarial drug Synriam. We had previously blogged about Synriam over here, here and here. The drug is a Fixed Dose Combination (FDC) of “arterolane maleate 150 mg and piperaquine phosphate 750 mg drug”. Arterolane was invented by a global team headed by Prof. Vennerstrom consisted of researchers from University of Nebraska (USA), Monash University (Australia), the Swiss

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SpicyIP Tidbit: Google’s ability to influence India’s internet policy

/ By / Competition Law

The weekly news magazine, Outlook carried a cover page story on Google’s growing influence in India and questions whether we should worry about the company’s influence? The article gives a list of initiatives funded by Google. Some of these were well known, like the Parliamentary Research Service (now re-named IPRS). Others like the Hoot and the Centre for Communication Governance at the National Law University in New Delhi certainly came as news to me. The Hoot is an excellent media

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The continuing hunt for CSIR’s royalties: A look at the ‘Statements of Working’ filed by CSIR with the patent office

/ By / Innovation, Patent

Over a period of six months last year, I had filed a series of RTI applications and appeals with the Council for Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR), the government’s primary civil scientific establishment asking for details of the royalties earned through licensing of its patents. In its initial reply, the CSIR refused to share these details with me on the grounds of commercial confidence. Later on, after I won an appeal with the First Appellate Authority at the Department of

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The Revised CIS Privacy Bill: Violation of privacy shouldn’t be a strict liability offence

/ By / Privacy

Continuing from my last post on the Revised CIS Privacy Bill (available over here), I would like to specifically concentrate on the “offences” section in the draft bill. The relevant provisions are as follows: “Punishment for offences related to personal data. – (1) Whoever, except in conformity with the provisions of this Act, collects, receives, stores, processes or otherwise handles any personal data shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to [___] years and may also

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