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).

Music labels across India complain against PPL’s anti-competitive behaviour

/ By / Competition Law, Copyright

From Punjab to Tamil Nadu, music labels are up in arms against the anti-competitive behaviour of the country’s only registered copyright society for ‘sound recordings’ – Phonographic Performance Ltd (PPL).  As explained earlier on this blog, PPL is controlled by a coterie of the seven biggest music labels – (i) Virgin-EMI (ii) Universal (iii) Tips (iv) Sony (v) Saregama (vi) Aditya (vii) Venus – all of whose representatives are in control of the Board of Directors of PPL. Any complaint […]

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The selection process for appointment of Technical Member (Patents), IPAB

/ By / Uncategorized

The DIPP recently replied to my RTI application asking for information pertaining to the appointment of Mr. D.P.S. Parmar as the Technical Member (Patents) IPAB. The Technical Member is supposed to sit along with a Judicial Member to adjudicate patent revocations and also appeals against the Controller. The previous person to hold this post was Mr. Chandrashekaran, who was earlier the Controller General of Patents.  We can now confirm the following 8 persons applied for the post: (i) Mr. D.P.S.

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Are missing files a problem at the Indian Patent Office?

/ By / Uncategorized

While it is now established beyond doubt that missing files are a massive problem at the Trade Marks Registry, I would like to know from patent lawyers whether they are facing a similar problem at the patents office. So far I know of only one case which ended up in court over a missing pre-grant opposition file. That case had been filed by Polymedicure Ltd. and did not involve its own files but instead the files of a patent which

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Guest Post: A TM Lawyer expresses his ‘kolaveri’ against the Trademark Office

/ By / Trademark

I’m sure that by now most of our readers have heard of the absurd yet super-popular ‘kolaveri’ song which went viral across the country in a matter of a few weeks. The operational word ‘kolaveri’, a Tamil word, is supposed to mean ‘murderous rage’. For the last few weeks we’ve been receiving some ‘kolaveri’ from practitioners upset, in particular, with my style of writing. It is therefore a pleasure to receive the following piece from a practitioner, expressing his ‘kolaveri’

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Delhi HC winks at the IPR (Import) Rules, 2007 in the L.G. Electronics case

/ By / Uncategorized

Mathews last week had carried this post, summarizing an ex-parte order by Justice Manmohan Singh in the case of L.G. Electronics Pvt. Ltd. v. BharatBhogilal Patel & Othrs. Image from here. In this post I would like to critically analyse the order and its implications for future cases. Before proceeding any further, I would like to briefly point our readers to the Ramkumar case, where Customs Authorities had seized consignments of imported mobile phones which were allegedly infringing Ramkumar’s patents.

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Debating the legality and the efficacy of the CSIR-Patent Office agreement to out-source prior art searches

/ By / Uncategorized

Earlier this year, the Patent Office entered into an outsourcing agreement with the Council for Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) wherein a specialized division of the latter would conduct prior art searches for pending patent applications and prepare search reports which would be used by patent office examiners to decide the patentability of an invention. The ostensible reason behind this move was to help clear the massive backlog of patent applications at the patent office. This story was initially reported

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Clarification from CSIR on the prior art search services provided to the Patent Office

/ By / Uncategorized

We recently received an email from CSIR objecting to one of my hearsay comments in an earlier post on the quality of prior art search being provided to the Patent by the CSIR.  My statement was as follows:  “The most interesting submissions, in my opinion, is from the ‘Officials of the Delhi Patent Office’. Not only have these officials questioned the practice of outsourcing examinations to the CSIR, they have also criticized the quality of examinations conducted by the CSIR.

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The ‘missing files’ at the IPO: Time for a CAG audit?

/ By / Trademark

Earlier this year, we had blogged about the shocking disappearance of around 44,000 missing files from the 5 offices of the trademark registry. The 44,000 missing files had come to light after Justice Murlidhar of the Delhi High Court, hearing a petition by Haldiram Pvt. Ltd., ordered the DIPP to investigate the same. A few months after that internal investigation supervised by Ms. Chandni Raina, Director of the DIPP, the Controller General’s office issued a public notice, informing the general

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40 Examiners – 15 Registrars – 400,000 pending TM applications – The crippling truth about the Trademark Registry

/ By / Trademark

  Over the last few years, the Trademark Registry has come under fire from several quarters for rampant corruption, as witnessed in the arrest of Ms. Kasturi; startling inefficiency, as witnessed by the thousands of missing files and the poor quality of trademark examinations. While of course, some of these problems can be blamed on the poor moral fibre of some, not all, of the staff at the TM Registry, the larger problem appears to be an absolutely appalling lack

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Rajya Sabha scheduled to debate Copyright Amendment Bill and Commercial Division of High Courts Bill tomorrow

/ By / Uncategorized

Tomorrow’s, List of Business for the Rajya Sabha indicates that the Government is seeking to debate and vote on both the Commercial Division of High Courts Bill, 2010 and the Copyright (Amendment) Bill, 2010. Both these Bills were scheduled to be passed in Parliament in the last session which got washed out thanks to the BJP’s protest against the appointment of the Lokayukta in Gujarat by the Governor without consultation with Modi & Co. We had blogged about these Bills

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