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: A critical analysis of the Indian Policy on seeds – Bane or Boon?

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We’re pleased to bring to you a guest post by Nirajan Man Singh & Sheja Ehtesham, both of whom will be graduating from NALSAR this weekend. Their post deals with the Seed Act, 2004 which is scheduled to be tabled in Parliament amidst severe opposition from farmer associations. A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE INDIAN POLICY ON SEEDS – BANE OR BOON?India is predominantly an agricultural country. 31% of its GDP comes from agriculture and around 64% of its labour force […]

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Parliamentary Report on the Patent System – The Good, the Ugly and the Doubtful

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It recently came to our notice that the Department related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Commerce tabled its 88th Report on ‘Patents and Trademark System in India’ way back on 24th October, 2008. Usually Parliamentary Committees are quite participative and atleast attempt to invite as many stakeholders as possible in the discussion leading to the finalization of the report. This is all the more true when the Committee takes more than 3 years to complete such a basic report. However even

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U.K. Court rules that anonymous bloggers cannot hide behind the right to privacy

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As many of our anonymous cowards, not to forget the FakeIPLplayer, will tell you – anonymity has its own thrills. Unfortunately for some of their anonymous brethren in the United Kingdom a recent decision of the High Court of that country has held that anonymous bloggers cannot restrain another person from stripping them of their cloak of anonymity since blogging is essentially a public activity not covered under the right to privacy. Justice Eady in a short but sensible judgment

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An IP Policy for the Aam Admi: Is the new UPA Government up for the challenge?

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It’s been two weeks since the Indian electorate, defying all poll predictions, voted the Congress led UPA Government back into power (minus the comrades from the Left parties). The resounding victory of the UPA Government is widely seen as the vindication of the UPA’s aam-admi (common man) policies such as the NREGA and the agricultural loan waiver. Since PM Manmohan Singh’s government has proposed a 100 day action plan for various ministries it is but obvious that we must chip

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Beware Mumbaikars: The Slumlord’s Act could detain you for a year for simply buying a pirated DVD

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The ToI in a detailed report a few weeks ago reported that President Patil had given her assent to an amendment to the Maharashtra Prevention of Dangerous Activities of Slumlords, Bootleggers and Drug Offenders Act (hereinafter the “Slumlord Act”). As per the ToI report this amendment to the Slumlord Act makes it a criminal offence not only to sell pirated DVDs/CDs but also to buy such pirated DVDs/CDs! As outrageous as it may seem to most of us the fact

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Intellectual Ventures comes to India and NO its not a ‘Big Bad Patent Troll’

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Intellectual Ventures (IV), an ‘Invention Capital’ company headquartered in Washington, has reportedly entered into an MoU with IIT-B to assist the latter in commercializing its inventions in the market place. As per a press release in regards the MoU, Intellectual Ventures “will both license IIT-B inventions accepted under this program and work on a number of possible commercialization strategies for them. Intellectual Ventures will pay IIT-B fees for such licensing and will also bear the patenting costs associated with these

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Is it Unconstitutional for the Patent Office to be the Adjudicatory Authority deciding Oppositions & CL proceedings?

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In an ideal world the patent office’s role should be limited to administrative activities i.e. the examination and grant of patents. We don’t live in an ideal world. The Indian Patent Office not only decides on patent applications but has also found itself burdened with the additional functions of deciding both pre-grant & post-grant patent oppositions apart from granting compulsory licences targeted at remedying anti-competitive activities of patentees. The fundamental question that we must ask ourselves at this stage is

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Delhi HC restores PPL’s right to sue for copyright infringement

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In July last year we had carried a post on a Delhi High Court judgment which held that Copyright Societies had no right to sue on behalf of their members. It just came to our knowledge that this judgment was over-ruled by a Division Bench of the Delhi High Court on 3rd November, 2008. Strangely though this judgment has not been reported either by Manupatra or PTC. The good news however is that the Delhi High Court website has started

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IP COLLOQUIUM-Broadening IP Horizons in Pharma, Software and Entertainment Industries

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It seems to be raining IP conferences in Mumbai. An IP Colloquium is being organized by NMIMS University -Institute of Intellectual Property Studies (India), Boult Wade Tennant (UK), Legasis Partners(India) on March 18th, 2009. The details of the conference can be accessed here. I’ve reproduced the contents of the link below:  Location: Mayfair Banquets, Graviss Hospitality Ltd Dr Annie Besant RdMumbai, MAHARASHTRA IN Entry fee: Rs. 1500 (Corporates), Rs. 650 (Students) Who should attend: · Corporates from Pharma, IT-Telecom, Entertainment industries; specifically

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Why did the Government of India oppose the ‘counterfeit drug’ definition proposed by IMPACT?

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In July last year the ET reported that the Government, in a bid to boost the credibility of Indian generics in the international market, was proposing a new definition of what exactly constituted a counterfeit drug. This move may have been inspired by the efforts of the International Medical Products Anti-Counterfeiting Taskforce (IMPACT) to come up with a new definition of counterfeit drugs. IMPACT is an agency setup by the World Health Organization (WHO). A senior Health Ministry official was quoted as saying “It

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