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.

Roche vs Cipla: Pondering the Puzzle

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The much awaited Roche vs Cipla judgment is out. And much like the Ayodhya judgment, it runs into innumerable pages, ensuring that only the most perseverant brave through it.  Rated as India’s first drug patent decision in the post TRIPS era (post trial), it marks an important watershed in Indian patent history. I have managed just one quick reading of the decision and will therefore offer very tentative observations and raise some questions. As Shouvik noted in his post here, […]

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OUP vs DU: A Simple Gutting of Copyright Defences?

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Imagine yourself as a judge, blessed with legal acumen, integrity and what not. A case is brought before you, as below: A person (Ashok) walks upto a shopkeeper (Ravi) and demands money for allegedly patrolling Ravi’s store and offering protection from thieves and the like. Ravi protests stating that he did not appoint Ashok to render the said services. In fact, Ravi had no idea that Ashok was doing so, and importantly, Ravi’s locks and other security systems within the

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A "Fair" Education in a Copyright World?

/ By / Copyright

Mainstream media in India has been abuzz with news of a copyright raid conducted against a small photocopy shop by leading publishers. The allegedly infringing material are course packs containing extracts from different books that are selected by the relevant faculty teaching the course at Delhi University. Students routinely procure these course packs from the local photocopier. The raid evoked sharp reactions from students and the academic community, with an FB protest page as well. Writing in Kafila, Lawrence Liang

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Patenting Pegasus: From Flights of Fancy to Firmer Legal Moorings?

/ By / Patent

By most accounts, India’s specialised IP tribunal, the IPAB (Intellectual Property Appellate Body) has undergone a significant face lift. From being seen as a lethargic and all too incompetent body, subject to flights of legal fancy and with a penchant for meticulously reproducing counsel submissions, sans any legal analysis of their own, many practitioners and IP stakeholders now swear by the proficiency of the IPAB. We’ll bring some you data soon to back up this common perception that after the

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Breaking News: Natco Admits to Bad Faith and BMS attempts Patent Linkage!

/ By / Drug Regulation

In a startling revelation, Natco admitted (albeit indirectly) that it had lied in its response to BMS’s quia timet law suit, wherein BMS approached the Delhi High Court in 2009, apprehending imminent infringement of its patent covering Dasatinib, an anti cancer drug.  In an earlier post, I noted that Natco may have committed a fatal legal blunder by stating on oath before the Delhi High court that: “It is denied that the Defendants intend to launch a generic version of

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Patent "Perception": A Contemptuous Natco?

/ By / Drug Regulation

For the longest time, Cipla ranked as our leading poster child for the debate on patents and access to affordable medicines. It took on the multinational drug majors at the drop of a hat and was credited with slashing prices of HIV medications to a small fraction of their prevalent rates. Yusuf Hamied, Cipla’s maverick leader, tellingly notes in a recent interview that:  “We had taken the lead to provide affordable medicine for AIDS and I think the time has

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Of Compulsory Licences, a Few Good Men and Patent "Teachings"

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Some months ago, the Indian Patent Office handed down what must rate as one of the most significant IP decisions of this decade (and perhaps the last several as well).  A decision that elicited as many supporters, as it did critics. Reputed economics professor, Arvind Panagariya went so far as to state: “It is said that only God and a few good men and women run India. One such man is P H Kurien. For readers unfamiliar with his name,

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New Leadership at SpicyIP

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In an earlier post, I expressed my desire to step down from the leadership of SpicyIP. This decision (over which I procrastinated for several months) stemmed from a variety of reasons, the most significant of which was  my extensive involvement with a whole host of projects around legal education (most pertinently, an access to education project for underprivileged students, titled IDIA).  I therefore thought it better to hand over leadership to someone with more bandwidth to handle the onerous task

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Stepping Down From SpicyIP

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For reasons that are both personal and professional, I will be stepping down from the leadership of SpicyIP, effective today. I will write a longer post about future arrangements soon. I want to take this opportunity to thank you all for the wonderful support and encouragement through all these years. I’ve learnt a lot from my interactions with you and I do hope that you will support SpicyIP in its continued fight for transparency and more informed IP policy making

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Courting Legal Talent by Offering Litigation Fellowships

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In a rather provocative post around two years ago on LAOT, I bemoaned the fact that a disproportionately large number of National Law University (NLU) graduates opt for “corporate” careers (defined largely as jobs involving a significant dose of corporate transactional lawyering in some form, either in law firms, companies (in house) or even in LPO’s). And that very few think laterally outside of this “corporate” career box, despite the fact that a law degree (and one from an alleged

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