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.

(Copy)Righting a Bollywood Wrong

/ By / Copyright

We’d blogged earlier on the government move to amend the copyright act to inter-alia redress a historical injustice and compensate Bollywood artists more justly for their creative endeavours. As many of you may be aware, most such artists (mainly music composers, lyricists and script writers) have been at the receiving end of unjust contracts from film producers and sound recording companies who’ve taken away all their rights for a lowly lumpsum. The Indian Express carried an editorial of mine on […]

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An Affordable Vaccine Model

/ By / Uncategorized

TV Padma of SciDev has a wonderful write up on an interesting experiment involving the Serum Institute of India and the NIH in relation to the production of an affordable meningitis vaccine. As many of you may know, SII is one of the most innovative companies in India. I reproduce some excerpts below: “An unusual vaccine development collaboration, which should lead to the launch of a cheap meningitis vaccine for Sub-Saharan Africa later this year, is emerging as a feasible

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Eroding IP Exhaustion Through Conditional Sales?

/ By / Copyright, Patent

Prashant’s persuasive critique of a recent Delhi High Court judgment dealing with principles of exhaustion was a delight to read. I want to focus on one issue that this case throws up: Can an IP owner whittle away the normal principle of exhaustion through notices and “conditional” sales i.e. imposing conditions to accompany the sale of a product embodying that IP? In the case at hand, could one argue that the sale was “conditional”, since the buyer of the book

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Indian "Bayh Dole" Amendments: A Historic Moment in Indian IP Policy Making

/ By / Patent, Plant Variety Protection

Ch Unni of the Mint reports on a rather historic moment for IP policy making in this country. Pursuant to the public outcry against the Indian Bayh Dole bill, a Parliamentary standing committee headed by Mr Subbarami Reddy requested the government to undertake wider consultations on the bill, take into account the various objections of stakeholders and come back with a revised version of the bill. After consultations with a variety of stakeholders including civil society activists, R&D Institutions and

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The "Fishy" Trademark Handover

/ By / Patent, Trademark

In a wonderful piece of investigative journalism, CH Unni reports on the rather “fishy” move to divest the current Controller General, PH Kurian of his “trademark” portfolio. Some see this as an attempt to reinstate a corrupt regime of the past…a regime that the efficient and energetic Kurian helped clean up to a large extent. Kurian’s reformist zeal in terms of ushering in major transparency measures helped lend significant accountability and credibility to a much maligned and opaque office. But

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Women Ace India’s Patent Agent Exam..and Equally Well Too

/ By / Patent

It gives me great pleasure to profile the toppers of this years’ patent agent exam, namely Disha Jeswani and Aditi Nadkarni. I am particularly pleased that both of them belong to the fairer sex…more power to women…. and less to those who are inclined to cast doubts on their “patent” prowess. I’ve had the pleasure of interacting with both of them on previous occasions and sensed that they would do well in this exam. Please give a round of applause

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Roche’s Patent Rejection: A Numerical Quantifier for Section 3(d)?

/ By / Patent

Rajiv Choudhry, who’d already featured on this blog earlier for having taken the pains to give us a terrific statistical preview of the results of the patent agent exam, now explores the Roche Valcyte patent decision. Incidentally, Rajiv, a qualified US patent agent working with a leading American patent law firm took the Indian exam this year and cleared it. After his exam, this is what he wrote to me in an email: “I took the Indian patent office exam

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Laawaris and Poetic Justice

/ By / Copyright

Sumathi blogged extensively and eruditely on the Laawaris controversy. The appellate judgment (albeit an interim one) by Justice Shah and Justice Sengupta of the Kolkata High Court is out now and Shayonee will bring you a detailed post on this soon. In the meantime, here is an interesting issue. Kalyanji Anandji’s lawyers claim as below: “…. Prakash Mehra had copyright only in …. the sound recording of the songs in the said film, but Prakash Mehra had no right in

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Welcoming the India Law Journal

/ By / Patent, Publication

Just came across a wonderful initiative by two enterprising students, Vikrant and Naina Pachnanda of GNLU and NUJS respectively. They have put together an online law journal called the “India Law Journal” that boasts a wide assortment of articles on a variety of legal themes. In particular, they have some interesting IP articles including one on nanotechnology and patents. Please join me in congratulating these proactive siblings on this laudable venture.

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“Informal” India and the Romanticisation of Innovation

/ By / Innovation, Patent

FICCI’s latest newsletter carried an article of mine dealing with grassroots innovation and the need to romanticise innovation. For those interested, here is the text: “Informal” India and the Romanticisation of Innovation3 idiots, one of the most tasteful Bollywood flicks this year, was embroiled in a “copyright” controversy involving credits to Chetan Bhagat, the author of the book on which the movie was allegedly based. What has been largely missed, however, is the ‘patent’ significance of the movie. The mysterious

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