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).

Rebutting arguments against multiple copyright societies

/ By / Copyright

Image from here. In response to my last post, I received a dismissive comment from Achille Forler, an insider from the music industry, who like most other folks from the music industry consider any commentary from outsiders as ‘pointless’. In any case, we on the blog seem to be much more receptive of criticism and I’ve taken the time out to rebut each one of the points raised by Forler. Forler’s comments are in red below, with mine in black: […]

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Mapping out the future of Indian copyright societies

/ By / Copyright

Image from here The latest copyright amendments enacted by Parliament requires “that the business of isuing or granting license in respect of literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works incorporated in a cinematograph films or sound recordings shall be carried out only through a copyright society duly registered under this Act”. The provision therefore aims at ensuring that all music companies, including T-Series which used to previously operate independently of copyright societies, are also forced to operate within a copyright society. 

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The ‘Register of Owners’ for future copyright societies – will the Registrar of Copyrights get it right 16 years later?

/ By / Copyright

Image from here Sometime in the next few months, once the Copyright Rules, 2012 is finalized by the Copyright Office, the Registrar of Copyrights will begin the process of registering new copyright societies. Sixteen years ago, when Indian Performing Rights Society (IPRS) was being registered as a copyright society, the Copyright Office committed several blunders during the registration process which inevitably led to the fiasco that followed in the later years. I’ve written about some of these blunders earlier over

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Sugen’s desperate attempt to save its Sunitinib patent

/ By / Uncategorized

Seven years after the enactment of the Patent (Amendment) Act, 2005, India continues to struggle with the absolute basics of its post-grant opposition mechanism. As our readers may already be aware, the Patent Office recently revoked the patent for Sunitinib.  Although the patent has been identified in the media as a Pfizer patent, Pfizer is only the licensee. The patent is actually owned by Sugen Inc & Pharmacia & Upjohn. In its Form 27 filing with the patent office in

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Guest Post: ‘Xerox’ is not Generic…….Yet?!

/ By / Trademark

As we had mentioned in passing a few weeks ago, Xerox Corporation scored a major victory before the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB) which dismissed several petitions by a Chennai based photocopy shop to declare the ‘Xerox’ trademark a generic mark thereby disqualifying it for trademark protection. Given the sheer volume of evidence presented by the petitioner, the judgment of the IPAB was a hard fought victory for Xerox and its lawyer, Shwestasree Majumdar. The judgment can be read over

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An anonymous comment in response to the DU Campaign against copyright law & publishers

/ By / Copyright

In response to the guest post by Chandana Anusha on the DU event – Who’s afraid of Copyright?, we received what has to be one of the most insightful comments that we ever received on the blog, so much so that it deserves to be published as an independent post on this blog. Unfortunately, the author of the comment has chosen to be anonymous and I’ve been unable to track him or her down despite my best guesses. In any

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A test case for India’s new safe harbour provision: AGS Entertainment v. 37 ISPs

/ By / Copyright

In the first of its kind case, after the enactment of the Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2012 the Madras High Court has passed an interim injunction against 37 Internet Service Providers in a qua-timet action by the producers of “Maattrraan/Brothers”, a Tamil movie starring Surya playing the role of conjoined twins. The plaintiff-producers were represented by A.A. Mohan and Associates.  A qua-timet action, is typically filed even before the infringement has taken place, on the apprehension that such infringement is going

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Karnataka High Court quashes Controller General’s order barring ‘Overseas Indian Citizen’ from practising as patent agent

/ By / Uncategorized

In an order dated the 25th of September, 2012 the High Court of Karnataka, situated at Bangalore passed a writ quashing an order of the Controller General of Patents, dated 22nd of February, 2012 which had ordered the removal of an erstwhile patent agent – Naren Thappeta from the Register of Patents, thereby barring him from practising as a patent agent under the Patents Act, 1970. The order can be accessed over here.  The petitioner was an Indian citizen at

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The perils of selective journalism

/ By / Innovation

Image from here Around two weeks ago, I received an email from Srinivas Rao, editor of Bio-Spectrum, asking me for permission to use some of the information that I had unearthed from CSIR using the RTI Act, 2005. The two specific posts that he wanted to refer to are: “CSIR finally discloses details of patent licensing: More than 400 patents licensed over last ten years” and “CSIR provides misleading information; aims to hide revenues from patent licensing”.  I obviously thought

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Guest Post: Exide v. Exide: Too much Exidement?

/ By / Trademark

Our regular guest blogger, Arun Mohan, a practising IP lawyer before the Madras High Court has sent us this very interesting post analysing in detail the recent Exide judgement of the Delhi High Court and its implications for Indian businesses. The case took fifteen years to come to a resolution and even that happened only after one set of lawyers were changed by one of the parties. It helped that the presiding judge was Justice Valmiki Mehta, an exceptional judge

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