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.

PIP Essay Competition Results Announced: Meet the Winners

/ By / Patent

Last year, we’d announced a new IP writing competition for law students called PIP (Pondering Intellectual Property). This competition was jointly organised by SpicyIP, the MHRD IP Chair at the National University of Juridical Sciences (NUJS) and the Intellectual Property and Technology Law Society (IPTLS). We’d asked law students from around the world to vent their creative musings on the following theme: “Should the process of creating an invention or work determine its protectability as an intellectual property? “ We […]

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Leading IP Academics Fired: Protest Petition Against Unfair Dismissals

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As many of you now know, two leading figures in Indian IP academia were axed by their whimsical bosses, sending shockwaves across the Indian acadmic community. Swaraj’s earlier post on this notes:   “In a shocking development, LiveLaw reports that as of last month, Professor N.S.Gopalakrishnan (NSG) has been removed as Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) Chair Professor at Cochin University of Science and Technology (CUSAT) without any reason being disclosed.  As those in the IP community would know, Prof Gopalakrishnan

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Loss of an IP Leader: RIP Prof Daruwalla

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Most in the Indian IP firmament may have heard of the doleful demise of one of our IP leaders, Mr. Tehemtan Nasserwanji Daruwalla. He was an establishment unto himself and left an enduring legacy to the IP world and an indelible impression on anyone fortunate enough to have met him.  When I first chanced upon him and he rallied forth on a recent IP development, interspersing IP nuances with delightful nuggets from Shakespeare, I thought to myself: Wow! What an astounding

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INTAvening in the Supreme Court: Parallel Imports and the Samsung Saga

/ By / Trademark

INTA, widely recognised as the most powerful IP association the world over has applied for leave to intervene in the famous parallel imports battle that is ongoing in India. A recent INTA bulletin states: “The Asia-Pacific Subcommittee of INTA’s Amicus Committee has filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court of India seeking leave for INTA to intervene in a closely watched case on parallel imports and international trademark exhaustion. This is the first time the Association has sought to act

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Independent Intellectual Property: Gunning For (or Against) Glivec?

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On this momentous occassion of India’s 67th independence anniversary, I thought it fit to reflect on the space for “independent” intellectual property thinking. Sadly, tis’ a space that is fast shrinking. And the root cause is one that I’ve highlighted time and again on this blog. A polarisation of our IP debates, and a Bush like “either you’re with us or against us” kind of approach.    Anyone with a half decent view on IP is immediately forced to align

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IPO vs IPAB: IT Prowess and Transparency?

/ By / Patent

In a post written around a month ago, we’d wailed our hearts out at a rather pitiable IPAB website: “Any of you accessing the IPAB website will know how incredibly difficult it is to find orders! Clearly the IPAB website needs a lot of revamping if they are serious about transparency and ensuring that their pronouncements are made easily accessible to the public. Given that India is often touted as an IT super power, this is a shame and the

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Legalising the IPAB: The Madras High Court Vindicates!

/ By / Trademark

In an earlier post, we bemoaned the fact that an unconstitutional IPAB continues to surf the IP wave in India, rendering one IP judgment after another, despite being cocooned in a shell of structural illegality. Unfortunately our writ petition questioning all of us continues to languish at the Madras High Court without progress. Ammini Karnan vs IPAB   In a vindication of sorts, a Division Bench of the Madras High Court recently agreed with our assessment and opined that the

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Anarchy, Apathy and the IPAB: A Fervent Plea to the IP Community

/ By / Trademark

The Intellectual Property Appeallate Board (IPAB) is the cynosure of international eyes. Under the leadership of a much admired Justice Sridevan, it recently upheld a landmark compulsory licensing order involving an excessively priced cancer drug. And it continues to proffer bold jurisprudence time and again! Unfortunately, Justice Sridevan notwithstanding, this body is patently unconstitutional, rendering its orders legally suspect! We pointed this out in a writ petition two years ago. Despite our best efforts, the matter has simply not made any

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Academics "Speak" Out in Coursepack Copyright Case

/ By / Copyright

In another significant milestone in the unfortunate copyright case filed by leading publishers against Delhi University, the court permitted SPEAK, an association of academics and authors to intervene. For a background to this dispute, see all our posts here.  For a condensed version of this law suit and what it represents, see here. For the latest post linking to a letter by academics calling on the publishers’ bluff that they support fair use and that the law suit only targets

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Copyright Constitutionality Challenges

/ By / Others

In an earlier post, we’d reported a constitutionality challenge that had been filed against the recent copyright amendments. Well, it turns out that the constitutionality challenge was filed by 3 different parties. 1. T series and Venus filed two separate petitions challenging the constitutionality of the statutory licensing scheme under the amended Section 31(1)(b) and 31(D). They had initially filed the writ in the Supreme Court under Article 32, but were asked by the court to file instead in the

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