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.

Money for Nothing: Is the INR Logo a Copy?

/ By / Copyright

Gautam Bakshi, Head IPR (R&D), Lalru Division, Panacea Biotec asks whether the below facts call out for a case of copyright infringement. Apparently, whilst travelling by train recently, he came across the logo of a company named Railtech which looked awfully similar to the new INR symbol that has made much waves in the recent past. Indeed, the symbol appeals to all of us for its clear link to the devanagari script and its simple elegance. Both these logos appear […]

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Indian Bayh Dole and Transparency in Public Research

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CH Unni of the Mint has a succinct report of the Parliamentary Committee Report that we blogged on yesterday. In particular, he stresses on the “transparency” norms that the Committee has asked the government to follow while revamping the Bill. He also has Mr Subbirami Reddy, the Chairman of the Standing Committee on record stating that a record 75 amendments were proposed to the original text of the Bill. If these are effectuated, we’ll certainly have a more evolved version

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IPAB, Pre-Grant Oppositions and the Onset of a "Heard" Mentality

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A wonderful order by the Madras High Court affirming the UCB vs Farchim decision that pre-grant rejections can be appealed–as the rejection is effectively made under section 15 of the Indian Patents Act. However, the court goes further and holds that the winning pre-grant opponent must necessarily be “heard” in any appeal before the IPAB. A well reasoned and succinct judgment–and most importantly, a “fair” one. The facts of the case are also interesting, since it is one of the

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Indian "Bayh Dole" and a Painful End to the Pursuit of Pleasure

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The Parliamentary “Standing” Committee wound up its various “sittings’ on the much maligned Indian “Bayh Dole” Bill and the report is finally out! The report was recently “laid” on the floor of both Houses of the Indian Parliament, namely the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha. It is now upto the government to either accept this report and frame a new bill or to reject it or even to accept/reject in part. Given that the government was closely co-opted into

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Leninism and Spirituality: Whither Privacy?

/ By / Privacy

IP is not a static monopoly. Its very dynamic, often attempting to covet other domains within its fold. Little wonder then that the debate on whether or not “privacy” norms can be categorised as an extension of “intellectual property” continues to rage, sans any satisfactory settlement. For a lighter reading on this nexus between IP and privacy, see here. And for a more academic take, see Pam Samuelson’s thoughtful article here. I come neither to bury this nexus..nor to praise

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"Prioritising" Pharmaceutical Patents in India?

/ By / Patent

Many pharma patent cases (including the Novartis Gleevec case and the Roche Valcyte case) raise the issue of “relevant” priority dates. Tahir Amin dealt with this issue at length in this wonderful post here. I extract his introduction as under: “Ask the question whether pre-95 drug inventions are patentable in India under the 2005 Patents Act – and the answer you are likely to get is ‘no they are not’. The reason? India became a member of TRIPS on 1

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Welcoming Rajiv Choudhry to the Blog

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I have great pleasure in announcing that Rajiv Kumar Choudhry, an Indian patent agent working in the US (and qualified in both India and the US, albeit partly) will be joining us on SpicyIP, starting today. Rajiv has a B.E. in Electronics from Nagpur University and an LL.B. from the University of Delhi, Law Center-II. Not content with two degrees, he went on to acquire an LL.M. in IP law at the George Washington University Law School and an MBA

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Diversity and Thinking Outside the "Law Firm" Box

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Many of us have lamented the fact that although the “national law schools” have churned out very gifted lawyers, we’ve lost many of them to law firms. It is but natural that many of them are attracted to financially rewarding jobs that law firms typically guarantee. However, given that these law schools were established to induce alternative forms of lawyering aimed at improving society, we have to admit that there has been a failure of sorts…and a massive one at

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Patent Grant Dates and Serial Oppositions: A Timely Clarification

/ By / Patent

Inventors have a lot to thank Justice Muralidhar for! In one fell swoop, this erudite judge of the Delhi High Court has injected efficiency and timeliness into the patent grant process. In a batch of writ petitions that were clubbed together (Snehalatha vs UOI and others) and decided yesterday, the key issue was: what is the actual date of grant of a patent? Is it the date of grant of the patent certificate? Yes, argued the petitioners who wished to

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Experimental Use Exception: An Indian Perspective

/ By / Patent

The experimental use exception under Indian patent law is something that hasn’t received much coverage, either in terms of case law or academic writings. We (Prashant Reddy and I) have taken a shot at this doctrine and attempted to demonstrate the rather impressive width of this Indian exception and how it could be a model for other developing countries, particularly technologically proficient ones. For those interested, please see the full text of this article that was published in IDEA, the

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