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 CCI’s Identity Crisis and Dealing with Misplaced Criticism

/ By / Competition Law, Drug Regulation

The Competition Commission of India (CCI) will complete 14 years of its existence this year, having been established in 2003 (although it became fully functional only much later). Like all teenagers, the people around it can’t seem to identify its exact role in the universe. In the case of the CCI, the question is whether the institution is a part of the executive or the judiciary. This issue was raised before the Supreme Court in the case of Brahm Dutt […]

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The Delhi High Court Misses Another Opportunity to Rule on the New Section 52(1)(w) in Context of Engineering Drawings

/ By / Copyright, Design, Overlaps in IP

In a recently delivered judgment, the Delhi High Court was once again faced with a plaintiff seeking an interim injunction restraining a defendant from manufacturing a product on the grounds that it was infringing the plaintiff’s copyright in its engineering drawings. The plaintiff Holland L.P. and its Indian partner, claimed to have invented “automatic twist locks” (ATL), to help secure containers on railcars. The system is used by the Indian Railways which put out a tender for procurement of the

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Justice Bhat overruled Time Incorporated v. Lokesh Srivastava in 2014 (& we discovered it only in 2017)

/ By / Copyright, Patent, Trademark

At a conference held earlier this month in Bangalore (organised by Professors Yogesh Pai, Arul Scaria & T. Ramakrishna of NLU-D & NLSIU), I was surprised and delighted to learn that the infamous judgment in the case of Time Incorporated v. Lokesh Srivastava (2005) allowing for the grant of punitive damages in IP cases was overruled in 2014 by a Division Bench of the Delhi High Court led by Justice Ravindra Bhat. As judgments go, the Times Incorporated judgment was

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Lessons from TRIPS as India negotiates the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership

/ By / Others, Patent

Last week, 16 Asia-Pacific countries concluded yet another round of negotiations on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). Billed as one of the biggest regional free trade agreements, RCEP is expected to bring together the ten countries that form ASEAN along with Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand. These countries account for nearly 50% of the global population and 30% of global GDP. As expected, there were several protests in Hyderabad by NGOs and civil society although

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Guest Post: Is a film more than celluloid?

/ By / Copyright

This post was edited once after it was initially published and it differs from the version emailed to the SpicyIP mailing list. In June, we had an interesting series of posts on the ‘physical copy’ doctrine regarding cinematograph films. Sreyoshi got the ball rolling with her post on the copyright infringement case against the producers of Raabta and this was followed by a post by Advocate Swaroop M. of the Madras High Court. We now have a third, very interesting

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NOC requirement for registering or releasing new plant varieties scrapped

/ By / Patent, Plant Variety Protection

As per a recent report in the Financial Express by Vivian Fernandes, the PPVFR Authority, constituted under the Protection of Plant Variety & Farmer’s Rights Act, 2001 has finally done away with a long-standing requirement of producing a ‘No-Objection-Certificate’ (NOC) from the patentee of a particular GM trait that is used by a breeder while developing a new plant variety and which variety he seeks to register under the PVPFRA. Since the interplay of these rights is slightly confusing, let

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Madras Bar Association Challenges the Constitutionality of the Finance Act, 2017 and the New Tribunal Rules

/ By / Copyright, Others, Patent, Trademark

As recently reported by Bar & Bench, the Madras Bar Association has filed a petition before the Madras High Court challenging the constitutionality of Sections 156 to 189 of the Finance Act, 2017 as also the Tribunal, Appellate and other Authorities (Qualifications, Experience and other conditions of Service of Members) Rules, 2017 that I had written about over here. A bench of the Madras High Court headed by Chief Justice Indira Banerjee has issued notice to the government asking it to

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Government of India Launches ‘Occupy the Tribunals’ Movement with New Rules on Appointments and Removals of Judges of the IPAB & 18 Other Tribunals

/ By / Copyright, Others, Patent, Trademark

On June 1, 2017 the Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance notified in the Gazette of India, the Tribunal, Appellate Tribunal and other Authorities (Qualifications, Experience and other Conditions of Service of Members) Rules, 2017. These rules were notified under Section 184 of the Finance Act, 2017. It is usually the practice of the Central Government to publish a draft of statutory rules in the Gazette and invite comments from the public before notifying such rules into the law. However

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The Whatsapp Privacy PIL: Did Facebook shoot Whatsapp in its foot?

/ By / Privacy

A few months ago, I had written about a judgment of the Delhi High Court dismissing a PIL filed against the change in Whatsapp privacy policy. As I had commented at this time, the PIL was absolutely frivolous and should have been dismissed. Yet, it is now being heard by a constitutional bench of the Supreme Court – a rare event these days. How did this PIL transform from being frivolous to ending up before a Constitutional Bench of 5

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143 patent infringement lawsuits between 2005 and 2015: Only 5 judgments

/ By / Patent

Sometime ago, Aparajita and I embarked on an empirical study on the issue of Indian patent litigation. Although the paper was never written, Aparajita did dig out some very interesting statistics on the filing and pendency of patent infringement lawsuits before 5 High Courts at Bombay, Delhi, Madras, Calcutta and Gujarat for the period of 2005 to 2015 i.e. the first decade of TRIPS. As most of you may know compiling litigation data in India is quite the nightmare because

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