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.

Copyright Bill Introduced in Rajya Sabha Today

/ By / Copyright

The Copyright Amendment Bill was introduced in the Rajya Sabha today. For those of you who wish to track the latest Indian bills, please refer to the excellent PRS website and twitter feed. We’d blogged earlier on some of the problems with this Bill, most notably a flawed “disability” related exception, with various disability groups registering their strong protest recently. They even sent a letter to the Minister for HRD, Kapil Sibal requesting the formation of a sub committee to […]

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NUJS IP Podcasts and Presentations

/ By / Patent

Thanks to the painstaking work of Sroyon Mukherjee a research associate with the NUJS IP Chair, some of the IP talks held at NUJS are now available for wider public consumption as below: 1. Graham Dutield’s talk on Traditional Medicinal Knowledge. To hear the audio version, please click here. To access his slides, please click here. 2. Meenakshi Chakravorty’s talk on recent trends in US patent law. To hear the audio version, please click here. Apart from this, we’ve also

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Transparent Kurian Illumines Again

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In a development that has significant ramifications for the improvement of transparency in the Indian patent process, PH Kurian, the Controller General resurrected an old order mandating that all correspondence between a patent applicant and the office (during the course of prosecution) be made available to the public. The order reads thus: “…after the publication of an application for a Patent u/s. ll(A), all the offices shall make available on the request of any person, the application on any form

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Leveraging Oppositions for a "Never Green" Patent System

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A recent policy paper on section 3(d) by former government official and IP expert, TC James resurrects the issue of the grant of 81 alleged “ever-greened” pharmaceutical patents. This paper was highlighted in several media reports, including one by leading IP reporter, CH Unnikrishnan of Mint. James’ paper poses an effective counter to the piece commissioned by the US India Business Council (USIBC) that effectively advocated the deletion of section 3(d) and I would urge you to read it. The

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Bar Exams and Election of Bar Council Chairman

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Gopal Subramanium, the current Solicitor General was recently elected as the Chairman of the Bar Council of India. We wish him the very best as he pilots this body and the profession that it represents to new heights. In an earlier post, we highlighted a Supreme Court ruling that relied extensively on a report by Mr Subramanium and mandated the conduct of bar exams this year. Now that he has been elected as the Bar Council Chairman, the prospects of

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IP Talk at NUJS on Current US Patent Law

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On Monday (12th April), Meenakshy Chakravorty will speak at NUJS on current trends in US patent law, including software patents. Those interested in attending this talk may send an email to shayonee[at]gmail.com. The talk is in Room 107 and is expected to range from 4 pm to 6 pm. Meenakshy Chakravorty is an associate with Finnegan Henderson, a leading IP firm in the US. She specializes in litigation and patent prosecution. Her work covers a wide range of technical areas,

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Urgent Request for Help: JPC Report and Indian Bolar Provision

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I’m hoping that one of our readers can help us out here. We’re looking very urgently for the JPC (Joint Parliamentary Committee) report that recommended the insertion of section 107A (a) (the Indian “Bolar” provision) into India’s patent regime. As many of you know, this Committee was set up to recommend changes to India’s patent regime and submitted its report to the Parliament on 19 December 2001. According to the report: “the provision [section 107A(a)] has been made to ensure

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An Indian Bar Exam in the Offing?

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Despite being passed in December 2009, a Supreme Court judgment with tremendous ramifications for the practice of law came to our notice only recently. In Bar Council of India v. Bonnie Foi Law College, Justice Dalveer Bhandari and Justice H. L. Dattu mandated the Center to conduct bar examinations to test candidates for their suitability or otherwise for entry into the legal profession. You heard right: current law students who expect to graduate this year may not be able to

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Indian IP Policy Formulation: From Confusion to Coherence

/ By / Patent

We reported earlier on the promising appointment of V Bhaskar, a distinguished civil servant to the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), the nodal agency for all matters relating to IP in India. We hoped that the government would consolidate all IP related functions (that had hitherto been dispersed amongst several IP officials) under the charge of Mr Bhaskar. It now turns out that our hope indeed came to pass and Bhaskar has been vested with the enviable task

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Andhaakaanoon: An Obtuse Copyright Exception for the Disabled?

/ By / Copyright

In previous posts, I noted the need for a meaningful copyright exception in favour of the “disabled”, a category not necessarily limited to those that are visually impaired, but includes any person unable to enjoy copyrighted works in their “normal” format. Illustratively, legendary scientist Stephen Hawking who suffers from ALP (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis) is unable to read a printed book, but has to have this book digitized and then filtered through special software which reads it out to him. Many

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