Author name: Shamnad Basheer

Prof. (Dr.) Shamnad Basheer founded SpicyIP in 2005. He's also the Founder of IDIA, a project to train underprivileged students for admissions to the leading law schools. He served for two years as an expert on the IP global advisory council (GAC) of the World Economic Forum (WEF). In 2015, he received the Infosys Prize in Humanities in 2015 for his work on legal education and on democratising the discourse around intellectual property law and policy. The jury was headed by Nobel laureate, Prof. Amartya Sen. Professional History: After graduating from the NLS, Bangalore Prof. Basheer joined Anand and Anand, one of India’s leading IP firms. He went on to head their telecommunication and technology practice and was rated by the IFLR as a leading technology lawyer. He left for the University of Oxford to pursue post-graduate studies, completing the BCL, MPhil and DPhil as a Wellcome Trust scholar. His first academic appointment was at the George Washington University Law School, where he served as the Frank H Marks Visiting Associate Professor of IP Law. He then relocated to India in 2008 to take up the MHRD Chaired Professorship in IP Law at WB NUJS, a leading Indian law school. Later, he was the Honorary Research Chair of IP Law at Nirma University and also a visiting professor of law at the National Law School (NLS), Bangalore. Prof. Basheer has published widely and his articles have won awards, including those instituted by ATRIP, the Stanford Technology Law Review and CREATe. He was consulted widely by the government, industry, international organisations and civil society on a variety of IP issues. He also served on several government committees.

Need Your Feedback: Report on Indian IP and Public Health

/ By / Biological Diversity, Copyright, Drug Regulation, Patent, Trademark, Traditional Knowledge

A month or so ago, I’d sent around an email to our SpicyIP mailing group asking for inputs on a report on IP and public health (for the WHO India Office). The report (authored by some of the SpicyIP team) deals with patents for the most part, but also contains chapters on trademarks, copyrights and traditional knowledge/biodiversity. The idea was that it would serve as a basic primer for those interested in a quick overview of the key legal issues around […]

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Amending Trademarks: A Critique by Chander M Lall

/ By / Trademark

The recent order of the General (CG), Chaitanya Prasad disallowing substantial amendments in trademark applications has created quite the stir! Spadika first blogged on this here, outlining the key aspects of the CG decision. And I followed it up with a short note highlighting what I thought to be a welcome trend in having the executive don a judicial hat more often. I also went on to critique the CG decision for inter-alia being based on flawed assumptions. In particular

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Judicialising the Executive?

/ By / Trademark

Spadika’s well written post exemplifies a good trend in executive decision making.  That even in matters hitherto considered to be within the administrative/executive realm, our patent and trademark office (IPTO) follows a judicial process. In other words, prior to promulgating an executive decision (order), the office hears the parties and renders a speaking (reasoned) order. Of course, this “judicialising” of an executive order came about owing to a suggestion from the Delhi High Court. The IPAA challenged the initial IPTO

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Remembering Hitesh Barot

/ By / Others, Patent

A few weeks ago, I’d emailed our SpicyIP subscriber group on the tragic passing away of Hitesh Barot, a leading in-house IP counsel. The India Business Law Journal (IBLJ) put together a wonderful piece collating the sentiments of many who knew Hitesh. With their permission, I’m reproducing it below. The link to the IBLJ website which carries this piece (in the latest issue) is here. And for Indian law students, you get a free subscription to this wonderful repository of the latest

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Enercon and Positive Patent Perception

/ By / Patent

The recent Enercon decision by the Supreme Court will go down as a landmark judgment. For a succinct summary of this decision, see Aparajita’s post here. And for a review of this decision and some of the questions that it raises, see my post here. In today’s Financial Express, I argue that this Supreme court ruling more than amply illustrates that Indian IP law is neither anti IP nor anti MNC. That is, if one were willing to look at

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(C)Leaning Up India’s IP Dispute Resolution Framework

/ By / Patent

The recent Supreme Court decision in the controversial Enercon saga (Alloys Wobben vs Yogesh Mehra) is a significant milestone for Indian intellectual property law. For a succinct summary of this case, see Aparajitha’s post here. One hopes that this is the first step towards a leaner IP dispute resolution framework. However, the judgment however leaves open the following issues:  1. What if X challenges Y’s patent before the IPAB in a revocation petition. Y then sues X for patent infringement. As

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Overlapping Intellectual Property Rights

/ By / Copyright, Design, Overlaps in IP, Patent, Trademark

The inimitable IPKat has been very kind to SpicyIP in a recent post, where they noted: “…this Kat notes with pleasure that one of INTA’s media sponsors this year is Spicy IP, a blog which has not merely placed India firmly on the map so far as IP blogging is concerned, but has provided an invaluable source of information, ideas and critical comment at an impressively high level.  It’s only a few years ago since blogs were still regarded with suspicion,

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QU-IP: Prof David Vaver

/ By / Others

Some of you may recall “QU-IP”, a series of IP quips we initiated some years ago..to help us see the lighter side of IP and laugh a bit. It’s been a while since the last one, so here goes: This IP witticism is from a talk given by Professor David Vaver, a renowned IP academic, whom I had the great fortune of being supervised by. He is often cited by the Canadian courts and retired some years ago as head of the IP Centre at

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Copyright, Courts and Christmas

/ By / Copyright

“Dashing to the court In a mighty fancy sleigh O’er the case we gloat Laughing all the way A bunch of copyright crooks 
Been rippin’ off our books 
What fun it is to sue this chain In a copyright case again Copyright… copyright….. copyright all the way.. Oh what fun it is to make these needy students pay..
”   The above copyright jingle (taken from this Youtube video) owes itself to the highly talented duo of John Daniel (a lawyer

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An “Advocacy” Saga and the Inspiring Legacy of Rahul Cherian

/ By / Copyright

For those interested in policy advocacy, the NUJS Law Review has an elaborate paper outlining the tireless advocacy efforts (spanning more than 10 full years) of a bunch of dedicated campaigners who strove valiantly to foster access for the disabled. Their efforts resulted in the culmination of a newly introduced section 52(1)(zb) to the copyright regime. As many of you know, this is one of the widest possible copyright “disability” exceptions anywhere in the world, providing effectively that any conversion

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