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.

Contemptible Comments

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The past few weeks have seen the quality of comments received on the blog sink to abominable levels. If it were simply low quality comments with no bearing on the topic under discussion, one might have deleted it and left it at that. And hoped that commentators would work harder the next time to read the post carefully and leave a comment that was somewhat meritorious. It bears noting that our threshold for “merit” in a comment pretty much mirrors […]

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A Distinct IP Domain for India?

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When a Scandinavian colleague of mine recently opined that Indian IP was “interesting”, I thought it a gross understatement and a rather mild label. For Indian IP is not just interesting: it is highly entertaining, exotic, spicy, quirky, you name it! With each species of IP that we touch upon, we somehow manage to carve out a distinct identity and draw international attention. Think patents and you have the mysterious section 3(d) that continues to be mired in controversy. With

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Conflict, Bias and the Future of Indian IP

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T’was only some months ago that a big ticket IP litigation involving Novartis’ anti-cancer drug was derailed owing to the recusal by a Supreme Court judge (Justice Bhandari), following allegations of bias. I then pondered on the norms for recusal, asking where we ought to peg our standards? Too strict a standard of recusal, and judges are let off too loosely (and we end up with genuine miscarriages of justice). Too liberal a standard (where anything and everything qualifies as

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Bollywood Copycats: Inspiration vs Perspiration

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A wise inventor named Edison once remarked that genius was “one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration”. Since then, this pearl of wisdom has been handed down from generation to generation and preached several times over by parents, teachers and employers. I’ve always felt that this would have made for a great advertising line for any of the deodorants that we see around us (what better way to rid oneself of all the smell that comes from genius(y) perspiration). But

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Our Hunt for New Talent

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As mentioned in an earlier post, we’re hunting for new talent at SpicyIP. “Our lights have been dimming of late, and we need some bright sparks to join the SpicyIP team. Therefore, if you think you have what it takes to be a consistent blogger with a keen eye for IP issues and new/creative ways for thinking about them, please send us an email on ipchairnujs [at] gmail.com. Please mention why you think you might be a good fit for

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Bayer Challenges "Prima Facie" Determination in Compulsory Licensing Case

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The term “prima facie” counts as one of my favourite legal expressions. Not least because it appears to be the only place where the law expresses an unabashed preference for “appearances” (which in the real world can, and is often, deceptive). Certainly a problematic expression when it comes to the law of injunctions, particularly IP injunctions where our judges continue to shoot in the dark. But more of this later. For now, it may interest you to note that the

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Searching for Bright Sparks this Festive Season

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SpicyIP wishes its readers a wonderful Diwali, often referred to as the “festival of lights” (though, with the sound of firecrackers dominating each season, one might be tempted to rename it the “festival of sounds”). On this festive occasion, might we prod you towards a “green” celebration by reminding you that the brightest light of them all is the light of knowledge. And the most potent sound of them all is the sound of silence. But for those of us

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Branded Babies?

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I’ve never bred any babies of my own (well, at least to the best of my knowledge). But have helped several friends in what must be one of the most taxing tasks ever known to mankind: that of finding appropriate names for babies. While some of us want baby names to be unique, others are content with simply naming them after their favourite gods, goddesses, sport-stars, rock-stars, cine-stars…you name it! And yet others don’t give a damn…name and be done

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Reflecting on the Transparency Crusade

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The genesis of SpicyIP in 2005 had strong roots in the fervent desire to weed out corruption at Indian IP offices, by interalia, fostering greater levels of transparency. While we’ve witnessed some modest success along the way, it really falls several notches short of what we initially set out to do. All of us have day jobs/preoccupations that cast serious limitations on the time that we have at our disposal, but that is no excuse. The road to transparency has

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Novartis Glivec Patent Case: Preliminary Objection

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After Justice Bhandari’s recusal, the Novartis (Glivec) Patent case came up before a reconstituted bench today comprising of Justice Aftab Alam and Justice Ranjana P Desai. Novartis is appealing to the Supreme Court against an order of the IPAB which rejected its patent application covering Glivec (imatinib mesylate). Counsels for the respondents, Aryama Sundaram (acting for Natco, to the best of my knowledge) and Abhishek Manu Singh (acting for Ranbaxy and Cipla) forcefully contended that the Supreme Court ought not

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