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.

Samsung at the Supreme Court: Nationalising Exhaustion?

/ By / Copyright, Patent, Trademark

As expected, Samsung appealed the Delhi High Court order endorsing the concept of “international exhaustion” (parallel imports) under the Indian Trademarks Act. For those not in the know, we’ve outlined the concept of exhaustion and contrasted “international” with “national” exhaustion in this article here. For ease of convenience, let me illustrate this with an example. Assume that Apple Inc owns the trademark “iPhone” in the US, EU, India and several other jurisdictions including Bangladesh. An India retailer figures out that […]

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The S(war)tz Legacy and "Open" Lessons for India

/ By / Copyright

Aaron Swartz is no longer with us; a towering intellect he was, representing the best of conviction and passion in a world where, as the poet Yeats sadly noted:    “The best lack all conviction,   while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”    As this blog debates the “proportionality” of the US response to this access to knowledge crusader and the causal linkage between the prosecution and his death, I wanted to reflect for a moment on his

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DU Photocopy Review: The Melody of Justice

/ By / Copyright

In an earlier post, we’d highlighted how an unfortunate grammatical construct led to an order against Delhi University (DU) and Rameshwari Photocopy.  While the restraining order was directed effectively only against Rameshwari, the alleged “admissions”/”undertakings” of DU to the affect that they would not commit any infringing acts complained of by the plaintiffs in the suit were recorded in the order.  Aggrieved by this recordal, DU approached an appellate bench of the Delhi High Court consisting of Justices Pradeep Nandrajog

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Legalising Tribunals: A Judicial Sell Out?

/ By / Uncategorized

In a watershed development, the Government of India announced that it is now considering an umbrella legislation for all tribunals. Those of you tracking this space will appreciate that tribunalisation has been one of the most contentious issues in India, with  fresh constitutional challenges filed against tribunals almost every year.  Essentially a creature of Mrs Gandhi’s anxiety to rein in the power of a fiercely independent judiciary, tribunals were set up as allegedly speedy and specialised alternatives to regular courts. As expected,

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Brainstorming the Copyright Amendments

/ By / Others

  As the dates for the 2 day conference on  the copyright amendments draw closer, here is reminder inviting all of our readers to this intense brainstorming session on the amendments, the various interpretative issues and their likely impact. Sai’s earlier post on this outlined the various themes etc, and here is a brief recap. ‘The Copyright Amendments, 2012: A fair Balance?’ will be jointly hosted by the MHRD IP Chairs at the National University of Juridical Sciences (NUJS) and

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Breaking News: Pegasys Patent Invalidated by IPAB

/ By / Patent

In a major victory for public health advocates and patient groups, the IPAB (Intellectual Property Appellate Board) revoked the famous Pegasys patent (covering a new form of pegylated interferon) at the best of Sankalp Rehabilitation Trust, a patient group represented by leading counsel and renowned health activist, Anand Grover along with this associates Julie George and Pratibha Siva. As I’d noted in an earlier post: “Pegasus is an important case in many ways, not least of which is the fact

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Copyright Aggression vs Educational Access: The "Grammar" of Justice?

/ By / Copyright

In a rather unfortunate turn of events, Delhi University (DU) and Rameshwari appear to have lost the now famous DU photocopy case that pits the public interests of students against the private interests of publishers. As reported in earlier blog posts, a leading group of publishers, including OUP, CUP and Taylor & Francis, sued a photocopying shop (Rameshwari Photocoping) and Delhi University (DU) for alleged infringement of copyrights in their books, excerpts of which were compiled into student course packs

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Roche vs Cipla: A Patent Disappointment?

/ By / Patent

Given that the recent Roche vs Cipla decision was effectively India’s first post trial pharma patent ruling in a post TRIPS world, one might be forgiven for expecting a lot. Sadly, it disappointed…on several fronts. As I’d noted in an earlier post, the ruling suffers from serious jurisprudential flaws, with the Delhi High court effectively conflating issues of validity and infringement. A Mint article by CH Unnikrishnan encapsulates my views as below: “While many of us are happy about the

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DU Photocopy Case: Who’s Afraid of Copyright?

/ By / Copyright

–> The Delhi University photocopy case, an unsavoury law suit that pits the interests of private publishing houses against the interests of students and educational establishments, was debated by us extensively in posts here, here, here and here.  At least as pleaded in the law suit, the alleged instances of copyright infringement pertain only to educational “course packs” and the vast majority of takings amount to no more than 10% of copyrighted material. We now bring you a guest post

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PIP (Essay Competition) Deadline Approaching!

/ By / Uncategorized

As noted in several earlier posts, this year, SpicyIP brings you an exclusive IP writing competition titled Pondering IP (PIP). This competition is organised under the aegis of the Ministry of HRD Chair at WB NUJS, but in collaboration with IPTLS (a student run IP society at NUJS) and SpicyIP. The competition is open to law students throughout the world and we offer a modest prize for the best three essays. If you are a law student, we hope you

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