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).

Guest Post: T-Series’ Constitutional Challenge to Ss. 31(1)(b) and 31D of the Copyright Act

/ By / Copyright

  We have for our readers today, a very detailed guest post by my friend Chaitanya Ramachandran, analysing the argument made by T-Series in its constitutional challenge against Section 31(1)(b) and Section 31D of the Copyright Act, as amendment by the Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2012.   Chaitanya, graduated from the National Law School of India University in 2009. At NLS, he was the Chief Editor of the Indian Journal of Law and Technology. On graduating from law school, he worked […]

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SpicyIP Tidbit: Controller General restores name of OCI ‘Patent Agent’ to Patent Agent Register

/ By / Uncategorized

Dual citizenship in India, which was recognized, only a few years ago by Indian law, is giving rise to some very interesting legal issues before Indian courts. One such issue was whether Indian Patent Agents, who accepted citizenship of other countries, while retaining the status of ‘Overseas Citizen of India’, could continue to be recognized as registered Indian Patent Agents. In October last year, we had blogged about a judgment of the Karnataka High Court, where the Court had quashed

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Guest Post: Are Genes Eligible for Patents in the United States?

/ By / Patent

Continuing with our coverage of the arguments in the Myriad case, we bring you another guest post from Chris Ohly, a patent litigator and partner at a leading United States law firm. Chris’ article concerns recent arguments in the United States Supreme Court concerning the eligibility of “genes” for patenting under the US Patent Act. As his article reveals, the question presented in the case is “Are human genes patentable?” Standard disclaimers apply, which are as follows: the views expressed in

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Scoping the constitutional challenges against the Copyright Board

/ By / Copyright

Continuing from our earlier posts we now have confirmed information that the Copyright Board had been challenged by not only T-Series but also by a second set of parties who are involved in the film production business: Bharat Anand & JVM Movies Pvt. Ltd.  The scope of both the challenges differs slightly. While T-Series has challenged only Section 11 of the Copyright Act along with Rule 3(2) of the Copyright Rules, 2013; the second petition by the film producers challenges

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IPAB complains, yet again, about lack of resources and appointment procedures

/ By / Uncategorized

In its annual report for the year 2012-13, available on its website, the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB) has complained about the shortage of human resources, lack of suitable infrastructure, insufficient funds and the unconstitutional appointment procedure currently being followed by the DIPP.  I reproduce the main complaints verbatim below:  “The first and foremost is the inadequacy in human resources: The phenomenal growth of the workload since inception has not been complemented by way of creation of additional posts. Despite

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The Competition Commission tightens the ‘noose’ around T-Series

/ By / Competition Law, Copyright

In late 2011, we had blogged about a complaint filed by HT Media before the Competition Commission of India (CCI), alleging that Super Cassettes (T-Series) was abusing its dominant position while licensing its content to radio stations.  Image from here This complaint is one of the many cases in the massive litigation between the radio industry and the music labels over licensing rates. Most of this litigation was taking place before the Copyright Board, a statutory body setup under the

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Does the Madras High Court judgment on S. 126 allow advocates without science degrees to become patent agents?

/ By / Uncategorized

A few posts ago, we had written about a judgment of the Madras High Court, when we had been informed that a part of S. 126 of the Patent Act, amended via a legislation in 2005 was struck down as unconstitutional. We had also concluded that this legislation would now “allow all advocates to practice before the patent office without giving the patent agent exam.”  It appears that this initial reading of the judgment was wrong. It does not automatically

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Delhi High Court scheduled to hear 3 petitions challenging copyright amendments

/ By / Copyright

Image from here Continuing from Shamnad’s earlier post, we now have confirmation, that all three writ petitions challenging the constitutionality of the copyright amendments are listed for today, before Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul & Justice Kaur of the Delhi High Court. I think the petitions should be admitted without any difficulty. The three petitions have been filed by Super Cassettes or T-Series, Venus Entertainment and Bharat Anand. The first two are represented by Advocate Neel Mason and I’m guessing Amit

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Victory has a thousand fathers – CPI(M) stakes claim to Section 3(d)

/ By / Uncategorized

J.F. Kennedy had once famously stated “Victory has a thousand fathers but defeat is an orphan”. With the Supreme Court’s recent judgment rejecting Novartis’s patent application for its cancer drug, there has been much chest-thumping and back-slapping amongst the activist community and the generic pharmaceutical industry. It was only a matter of time before the Communist Party of India (Marxist) CPI(M) joined the party to claim its stake to the victory.  The CPI(M)’s mouthpiece, People’s Democracy, published an article in

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Deconstructing the judgment of the Supreme Court in the Novartis-Glivec patent case

/ By / Uncategorized

As promised in our last post, here is a more detailed analysis of the Supreme Court’s judgement in the Novartis case rejecting the patent application for the beta-crystalline form of imatinib mesylate (known as Glivec – “claimed invention”).  But first, here are some links to the coverage of the case by some of the top blogs in the U.S. and the U.K.: Patently O which featured two posts, one by Professor Dennis Crouch and the second post on the same

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