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.

Pondering the "Legal" Competence of the IPAB

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In a previous post, I pointed to the rather problematic history of the IPAB, where ILS officials (serving as government secretaries) engineered appointment rules and eligibility criteria to favour their own “future” postings to the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB). Unfortunately, while many of us in the IP media space have tracked the patent office and exposed its givings and misgivings, lesser attention has been paid to the IPAB. Given that this body plays a critical role in IP adjudication, […]

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Uncle Sam’s Missive to Mother India: "Fair" Patent Consideration at the IPAB?

/ By / Patent

In a hard hitting front page story, CH Unnikrishnan, a leading IP journalist with the Mint, exposes a questionable letter from the US Commerce Secretary, Gary Locke to his Indian counterpart, Anand Sharma, the Hon’ble Minister of Commerce. For those interested, we’ve just uploaded a copy of this letter on the SpicyIP website. In this letter, dispatched just days prior to Obama’s India visit, the US Secretary attempts, in his official capacity, to advance the corporate commercial (patent) interests of

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Getting "Technical" at the IPAB: Parmar vs Rengaswamy

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A little birdie informs me that the government will soon be filling up the “technical member” slot at the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB). And that the key contenders to this prized position are two Controllers who now work at the Indian Patent Office, namely DPS Parmar and V Rengaswamy. Rengaswamy decided the patentability of the Novartis “Glivec” patent application at the first instance. We wish them the very best of luck in this coveted battle. And hope that our

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Breaking News: Supreme Court dismisses (Bayer) Patent Linkage Appeal

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This afternoon, a Supreme Court bench consisting of Justices Aftab Alam and RM Lodha dismissed the Special Leave Petition (SLP) filed by Bayer in the patent linkage matter. It’s a huge surprise that this matter reached the Supreme Court at all, when the point of law (whether or not Indian law permits patent linkage) seemed as crystal clear as Swarovski’s elegant offerings. Indian law simply does not permit patent linkage i.e. the DCGI does not have the legal or institutional

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A "Special" Copyright Victory for the Disabled

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Prashant recently highlighted the key findings of a Parliamentary standing committee constituted to study the copyright amendment bill. In particular, the report comes as a huge victory to two sets of stakeholders, namely film/music artists on the one hand (music composers and lyricists who can now claim a good 50% royalty on all exploitations of their work, notwithstanding any assignments) and the disabled or differently-abled communities on the other. Let me focus on the disability sector in this note. I’ll

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B.Braun and Patent Irregularity: What Lies Beneath?

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The ET reported on the suspension of a patent official for alleged “irregularities”, in the context of a now famous B.Braun patent litigation case. I excerpt the critical portions below: “The government has suspended a senior Chennai patent official and initiated inquiry against another who retired earlier this year, for granting patent in a ‘highly irregular and improper’ way to German medical device maker B Braun. The move follows an investigation by the country’s Controller General of Patents, PH Kurian,

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Informal Innovators and Fostering More Access to the Patent System

/ By / Innovation, Patent

Issues of “access” to medicines have been part of mainstream IP debates for many years now. Unfortunately, another glaring issue of “access” has not merited sufficient attention: namely that of access to the patent system itself. Quite surprising, given that this bottleneck ends up engendering more inequity, as it prevents poor “informal” innovators from partaking in the benefits offered by the patent system. Given that patents are a major “reputational” currency for new businesses these days, it is critical that

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Trademark Dilution and Trade Names: Dispensing with "Interim" Injunctions?

/ By / Trademark

In an earlier post, I’d pointed to Supreme Court rulings that sounded the death knell for “interim injunctions” in India. With the latest judgment involving the “Raymond” trademark, it is clear that the Supremes are increasingly favouring a dispensation with the interim phase and moving directly to the trial stage, albeit a speedy one. The key issue in this case was whether or not Raymond was entitled to sue a pharmaceutical company using the name “Raymond Pharmaceuticals” (in its tradename)

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Legality of Patent Agent Exam: Collaborative Policy and CLAM

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In the aftermath of the last patent agent exam, in March this year, we had a heated round of discussions on this blog. For a nuanced statistical analysis of the results of this exam, please see Rajiv’s post here. Given that the IPO just announced the schedule for the next exam (January 15 and 16, 2011), we thought it might be an opportune time to reassess the exam, what it stands for and how it could be bettered. For those

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Eliminating "Interim" IP Injunctions?

/ By / Patent

In an earlier post, I bemoaned the mechanical grant of ex parte injunctions in patent matters and went on to note that: “In fact, I would go to the extent of arguing (as I do in this paper here with Prakruthi Gowda) that it is far better to dispense with the interim injunction phase altogether in complicated patent disputes and move directly to the trial stage, where issues of validity and infringement are assessed once and for all, after looking

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