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).

The role played by Microsoft in getting California to sue Indian textile manufacturers for unfair competition: Is it losing faith in the Delhi High Court?

/ By / Copyright

Carrying on from my earlier post on California’s outrageous attempt to sue an Indian textile manufacturer for allegedly using pirated software back in India, I have finally found a copy of the complaint filed by the California’s Attorney General in Los Angeles. The complaint can be accessed over here and I think it should receive an award for being the most vague piece of legal drafting and I’ll explain why.  Image from here The root of this litigation, as mentioned […]

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An outrageous Californian attempt at extra-territorial enforcement of American IP laws

/ By / Copyright

Image from here As reported by several news outlets over the last couple of months, the State of California has filed lawsuits against an Indian and a Chinese textile firm for allegedly using pirated software in their home countries to manufacture textiles which are then exported to the U.S. and in particular California. For some reason we appear to have missed these reports until we read this op-ed. From these reports it appears that the State of California is going to

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Auditing the worldwide litigation involving ‘Basmati’ and APEDA

/ By / Trademark

Image from here Last year, we had done a series of posts on the status of ‘basmati’ and the efforts being taken by the Government to protect it distinctive status under trademark and G.I. law. After learning of the Rs. 7.62 crores that were being spent by APEDA on various world-wide litigations, I had filed a RTI requesting APEDA for details of all such litigation. I had received the information back in September but forgot to publish it on the

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‘Rethinking the data exclusivity debate in India’ – A request for comments

/ By / Data Exclusivity

Image from here Around two years ago, I had written a post on the need to balance the data exclusivity debate in India (Shamnad has responded to that post over here). I wanted to expand that post into a full length academic essay and I finally got the time to do so, after a lot of procrastination. The article is available for download over here from SSRN.  I’m yet to submit it for publication to any journal and was hoping

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SpicyIP Tidbit: Saregama loses copyright claim for 7 seconds before the Calcutta High Court

/ By / Copyright

Continuing its aggressive copyright enforcement, Saregama sued Viacom on 28th February, 2013 on the grounds that its latest production ‘Special 26’, which was released in theatres on 8th February, 2013 had infringed its copyright in the lyrics and music of the sixties songs ‘Mere Sapno Ki Rani’ (Queen of my dreams), which featured in Aaradhana. Apparently, ‘Special 26’ had a scene where one of the lead actors Anupam Kher, uttered about 4-5 words from ‘Mere Sapno Ki Rani’, over a

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Madras High Court judgment gives a boost to unauthorized biopics and biographies

/ By / Privacy

Tamil Nadu has always had a passion for movies and it should come as no surprise that movies are often the centrepiece of controversies in this ‘Republic of the Outraged’. The latest is the case of Akshaya Creations & Anr. v. Muthulakshmi before the Madras High Court which is a cocktail of two very interesting areas of law: the right to free speech and the right to privacy, which is in a way related to publicity rights of celebrities and

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The Sugen v. Cipla post-grant opposition: The lost art of legal writing in the Patent Office

/ By / Patent

As Madhulika earlier blogged, the Patent Office after a circus of appeals filed by Sugen, once again revoked Sugen’s patent no. 2092951 on the grounds that it would be obvious, to a person skilled in the art, in light of the prior art produced by the opponent. Be that as it may, I would like to comment on the manner in which the opinion was written by the Controller and the deference or lack thereof to the precedents of higher

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Guest Post: The complex problem of developing modern drugs from Ayurveda

/ By / Biological Diversity

Today, we have for our readers, a guest post by Priyanka Pulla, a freelance journalist, on the difficulties in developing modern drugs from Ayurveda. A couple of weeks ago, Priyanka had written this excellent piece, titled “Ayurveda: Hoax or Science?” which featured as the cover story on Open magazine. After reading the story, I invited Priyanka to write us a guest post on the Ayurvedic drug industry and she has indulged us with the following post on the issues faced

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The G.I. Registry digitizes all G.I. records: Transparency zindabad! Controller-General zindabad!

/ By / Uncategorized

Finally, after years of agony that we have experienced while attempting to access information related to the grant of geographical indications in India, the Controller General Chaitanya Prasad has issued a public notice informing the general public that all public records pertaining to the G.I. Registry have now been made available on the website of the G.I. Registry. I have checked the new website and I kid you not, my eyes actually welled up with tears of joy when I

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Is there a need to break up the cartels in the radio – music labels negotiations?

/ By / Competition Law

Image from here One of the biggest Indian copyright litigation cases in the last decade has been the compulsory licensing battles between the radio and music industries. The newly founded private radio stations, in 1999, had wanted access to music and could not agree with the music labels on a reasonably royalty.  One aspect of this litigation which intrigued me is the negotiating positions adopted by both sides. In the two rounds of litigation before the Copyright Board, the radio

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