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.

Natco’s Compulsory Licence: Professional Negligence?

/ By / Patent

I’ve been thoroughly perplexed over the last few days. Why on earth did Natco apply for a compulsory license? Particularly when the process is susceptible to considerable delays and it could be a while before they get a clear signal to go ahead and make generic copies of Bayer’s patented Nexavar. And even when the permission does finally come through, they have to part with some of the moolah in the form of royalties to Bayer. Wouldn’t it have been […]

Natco’s Compulsory Licence: Professional Negligence? Read More »

The Novartis Patent Intervention

/ By / Uncategorized

With the recent recusal in the Novartis patent dispute, one is not sure as to when a new bench is likely to be constituted. Will it take a month? Several months? A year? Will there be more recusals along the way, given that the threshold for recusals has sunk really low? Meanwhile, for those interested, here is a link to a draft of the intervention submission I intend to file before the Supreme Court. It still needs cleaning up, but

The Novartis Patent Intervention Read More »

Pondering Judicial Recusals

/ By / Uncategorized

recuse |riˈkyoōz| verb [ trans. ]challenge (a judge, prosecutor, or juror) as unqualified to perform legal duties because of a possible conflict of interest or lack of impartiality Recuse: a word that is foremost in the minds of many in the Indian IP community and perhaps beyond….a community that is closely watching the outcome of a protracted and highly contentious patent litigation, that has been mired in one controversy after another for the last 8 years or so. Recuse: a

Pondering Judicial Recusals Read More »

The Glivec Patent Saga: Its Raining Recusals

/ By / Patent

A highly contentious Supreme Court case involving the patentability of Novartis’ anti cancer drug, Glivec continues to be mired in suspense and controversy. And might just make it to the Guinness Book of Records for the most number of recusals. First, it was Chandrasekharan who refused to step down despite the clearest apprehension of bias (given that it was under his administration that the patent was denied and he saw it fit to sit in appeal over his own decision).

The Glivec Patent Saga: Its Raining Recusals Read More »

Parallel Imports: The Unexpected Dumping of Section 2(m)

/ By / Copyright

In a rather unexpected development, the government decided to drop section 2(m) from the latest version of the copyright amendment bill. All the more strange, given that section 2(m) was the product of this very same government. And had received a thumping endorsement from the Parliamentary Standing Committee that reviewed the amendment bill. As many of you may know by now, Section 2(m) legalises the parallel imports of books and other copyrighted material into India and was part of the

Parallel Imports: The Unexpected Dumping of Section 2(m) Read More »

Towards an En-lightened Copyright Regime

/ By / Copyright

Many of us wait with baited breath as the latest set of copyright amendments are slated to be discussed the following week in both the Rajya Sabha and the Lok Sabha. Given that this monsoon session ends by the 8th of this month, it is doubtful if the bill will clear this session. Most expect it to be passed over to the next winter session in November. The bill was initially scheduled to come up last week but was drowned

Towards an En-lightened Copyright Regime Read More »

IP and Freedom Fighters

/ By / Copyright

On the 65th birthday of a nation that represents one of the world’s oldest civilizations, let me (on behalf of SpicyIP) wish all of you a wonderful independence day. Rather than pondering the meaning of independence and how our IP offices are still not fully “independent”, I thought it might be more interesting to explore the nexus between IP and our freedom fighters i.e. those that helped India break free from the yoke of colonial rule. Let’s start with the

IP and Freedom Fighters Read More »

Novartis at the Supreme Court: Intervening in a Polarised World

/ By / Patent

Please note: This an edited version of an earlier article written on this issue. The earlier blog article was very harsh in its tone, spurred in large part by my anger at what I saw to be a continuing attempt to silence me from engaging with issues of pharmaceutical patent law and policy, only because some of my writings were not to the liking of certain people. I apologise to our readers for the outburst, but do hope that we

Novartis at the Supreme Court: Intervening in a Polarised World Read More »

QU-IP of the Week: Justice Floyd on Obviousness

/ By / Patent

Given that the IP community at large has several witty commentators and decision makers in its midst, we decided to initiate a new series called “Quip of the Week” (Quip also happens to contain “IP”, reason enough to pick this term). So what do we have for this week? A rather provocative statement from the Hon’ble Mr Justice Floyd of the UK Patents Court (Chancery Division), who, obviously aghast at the sheer obviousness of a patent, remarks at the end

QU-IP of the Week: Justice Floyd on Obviousness Read More »

Performing Wrongs

/ By / Copyright

As promised, we bring you a wonderfully incisive post from regular guest blogger, Nikhil Krishnamurthy who, in his inimitable style, exposes the jurisprudential fallacy underlying recent copyright decisions that have been blogged about here and here. More importantly, we have his take on the 1977 SC case and why it is fundamentally flawed. In short, a must read for anyone interested in the nuances of music copyright law in India. In the light of the judgments of the Bombay High

Performing Wrongs Read More »

Scroll to Top