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).

RTI Replies Reveal the Deal between Janssen and the Ministry of Health on Bedaquiline

/ By / Drug Regulation

Co-authored with Balaji Subramanian, 5th Year student NALSAR University of Law Subsequent to our previous post, we got a copy of some of the correspondence between Janssen and the Ministry of Health under the RTI Act. We were under the impression that our request for the information was transferred to the CDSCO which then disposed the application without giving us the requisite information. However, it appears that the application was transferred back to the Central TB Division, which processed the […]

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Special Report: The Smoke & Mirrors Surrounding the Approval of Bedaquiline

/ By / Drug Regulation

Co-authored with Balaji Subramanian, 5th year student, NALSAR University of Law Prologue Last Sunday, The Hindu ran a piece on its front page alleging that  the government was not even considering the option of issuing compulsory licenses for a newly patented drug called bedaquiline, despite access to the drug being restricted to less than 1,000 patients. Bedaquiline, which is currently the most promising drug candidate to treat multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) was developed and patented by Janssen and The Hindu

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Of Spicy Blogs and the Headline Skimmers

/ By / Copyright

It appears that my last post on the repeal of the Copyright (Amendment) Act, 1999 and Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2012 really stirred the copyright pot. The outpouring of outrage against the content of the post and me, without even bothering to read the post is in keeping with the generally short attention spans of the internet audience. One of the editors of a new age digital news outlet recently shared with me the fact that the number of visits to

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Breaking News – Parliament Repeals the Copyright (Amendment) Act, 1999 and Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2012: What Effect Will It Have on the Copyright Act?

/ By / Copyright

In a shocking piece of news, delivered to us by one of our former bloggers, Thomas Vallianeth, it appears that Parliament recently repealed the Copyright (Amendment), Act, 1999 and Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2012 when it enacted the Repealing and Amending (Second) Act, 2017 and which law received Presidential Assent on January 5th, 2018. The repeal of old legislation has been high on the Modi government’s agenda and since winning the elections in 2014 this government has been regularly repealing old

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More Advocates Challenge the Requirement of a Patent Agent Examination to Practice before the Patent Office

/ By / Patent

Since I wrote about Sanjay Gandhi’s recent petition before the Madras High Court where he sued the Controller General of Patents on the issue of advocates requiring to take the patent agent examination, I have received information regarding two more petitions on similar points before the Madras High Court and the Delhi High Court. The petition before the Madras High Court has been filed by Wing Commander (Retd.) T. R. Mohan. The gist of his petition as per a comment

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A Wyeth Blooper Gives An Insight Into How Pharma Companies Calculate Sales Figures for Form 27s

/ By / Patent

As the Delhi High Court continues with the hearings over the Patent Office’s implementation of Section 146 of the Patents Act, we came across an interesting tidbit of information on how exactly pharmaceutical companies calculate the values disclosed in the Form 27s that are filed before the Patent Office. The background to this particular piece of information is a tip that we received from a reader regarding an erroneous Form 27 filed by Wyeth with regard to its patent IN

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Has IPRS Set the Stage for a Battle with Apple, YouTube, Reliance Jio, Airtel etc?

/ By / Copyright

Last week, Gulveen Aulakh of the Economic Times broke the news that the recently re-registered copyright society Indian Performing Rights Society (IPRS) has written to Indian telecom companies and platforms such as Apple and YouTube, demanding that they pay up for the use of IPRS’s repertoire, either by way of streaming or downloads. The recipients of these notices reportedly also include Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India, Idea Cellular and Reliance Jio. Apparently, some of these telecos have told the ET that

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And Now, ISRA’s Sanjay Tandon Accuses Us at SpicyIP of Being in the Pockets of Big Music Companies

/ By / Copyright

We received a comment a few days ago on one of my earlier posts, from Sanjay Tandon who claims to be CEO, Co-Founder, Managing Director etc. etc. of the Indian Singers Rights Association (ISRA). I reproduce the comment below: “As expected Spicy IP prefers to be hands in gloves with the Rich Music Companies and not with Artists… giving always a one-sided story… It was prompt to report this… but did not have the courtesy to report on the DISMISSAL

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Novex Muzzled by Bombay High Court in a Recent Threats Action by Gulraj Hotels

/ By / Copyright

In a recent order, dated February 9, 2019; Justice S.J. Kathawalla has restrained Novex Communications from taking any coercive action against Gulraj Hotel which filed a threats action under Section 60 of the Copyright Act after receiving a legal notice from Novex. (COMIP (L) No. 163 of 2018). The plaintiff in this case was represented by a team from the law firm Wadia Ghandy consisting of Sameer Pandit, Ramesh Soni and Madhupreetha Elango and led by Senior Advocate Virendra Tulzapurkar.

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Advocates v. Patent Agents: A new case before the Madras High Court

/ By / Patent

The ToI recently reported that Madras based advocate Sanjay Gandhi has sued the Controller General of Patents before the Madras High on the grounds despite being “entitled to appear before the statutory body [Patent Office] and advance arguments in his capacity as a qualified advocate, he was disallowed from doing so.” Advocates qualified under the Advocates Act, 1961 have been claiming for some time that they are entitled to practice before the Patent Office without qualifying as a patent agent

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