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.

Patent Oppositions in India: The "Efficacy" of Section 3(d)

/ By / Patent

Last week, CH Unnikrishnan of the Mint reported on a study that I had conducted with my research associate, Souvik Guha. Let me highlight some of the findings of this study prior to moving on to Unni’s report. After reviewing a slew of information from the Indian patent office website, we found as follows: i) The total number of pharmaceutical applications filed between 2005 and 2008 were around 9719. ii) The number of pharmaceutical patents granted during the above time […]

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PPL Extortion Takes a Turn for the Worse: Will the Government Please Step in?

/ By / Copyright

It is lamentable that despite our posts documenting the extortionist tactics of PPL and questioning its non transparent mode of functioning, things have only taken a turn for the worse. SpicyIP now has some damning evidence in the form of letters written by PPL to one of its victims, that reek of high handedness, intimidation, arrogance and worst of all, an utter and brazen ignorance of the law. Clearly this is one organisation which continues to operate under the “legal

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The Doctrine of Equivalents: An International and Comparative Perspective

/ By / Patent

The Yale Journal of Law and Technology recently published an article in memory of the late Sir Nicholas Pumfrey, who unfortunately passed away at the fag end of 2007. A gregarious judge who had a stellar reputation for getting to the root of a technology in a patent dispute even before counsels explained it to him, Lord Justice Pumfrey was also acclaimed as one of the “nicest” UK judges. The IPKat did a short obituary, which elicited some very touching

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Call for Submissions from the Indian Journal of International Economic Law

/ By / Uncategorized

A call for submissions from the Indian Journal of International Economic Law (IJIEL) which may be of interest to some of our readers. “We, the editorial board of the Indian Journal of International Economic Law (IJIEL), 2009-10, produced by students of the National Law School of India University (NLSIU), Bangalore are proud to invite submissions for the third issue of the journal from academicians, scholars and graduate students on topics relating to International Economic Law. IJIEL is an annual journal

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Turning TRIPS on its Head: Developing Countries and WTO Cross Retaliation

/ By / Uncategorized

Prashant carried a very interesting post on Brazil’s latest WTO authorisation to cross retaliate against the US. Cross retaliation refers to the right to retaliate against another sector/agreement under the WTO, such as TRIPS. Unfortunately, Brazil’s authorisation to cross retaliate is a “qualified” one. And Brazil cannot resort to this unless the losses caused to it by the WTO inconsistent subsidies (maintained by the US) exceed a certain threshold. Brazil claims that the losses caused by the US amounted to

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Syngenta Misleads Indian Court on "Data Exclusivity" and Article 39.3 of TRIPS

/ By / Data Exclusivity

In a very interesting matter concerning the protection of regulatory data, Syngenta, a Swiss MNC argued before Justice Ravindra Bhat of the Delhi High Court that Article 39.3 of TRIPS mandates data exclusivity. This is sheer nonsense! Anyone with a fair understanding of Article 39.3 of TRIPS and its negotiating history would appreciate that it does not mandate “data exclusivity”. But first the facts of Syngenta India Ltd vs Union of India (W.P. (C) 8123/2008 ): Facts: Syngenta procured registration

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NUJS Conference on Indian "Bayh Dole": Please Register Soon

/ By / Patent

As announced earlier, we have a full day conference on the proposed Indian “Bayh Dole” bill on the 12th of September. The final schedule is listed on the SpicyIP website. I want to thank Indrajeet Sarcar and Ashish Alexander, two brilliant “designer” students of NUJS for giving us such fabulous art work. Registration is free–and so is the lunch (challenging the prevailing economic assumption that “there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch”). But if you wish to attend,

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Strange Twist in the Novartis Glivec Case: Justice Katju Recuses Himself

/ By / Uncategorized

The Novartis Glivec saga took a rather strange twist at the Supreme Court, with Justice Markandey Katju recusing himself from hearing the matter. As noted in a previous blog post, the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB) held, in what could only be termed as a flight of legal fancy, that since the price of Glivec was too high, it was against “public order” and therefore a patent ought not to be granted in favour of Novartis! It also ruled against

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A "Spurious" Definition: Need to Amend the Drug and Cosmetics Act

/ By / Drug Regulation

As many of you know, the latest amendment to the Drugs and Cosmetics Act came into force on August 10, 2009 vide Central Government notification no. S.O.2076(E). This bill was first introduced in Parliament in December 2003. It was passed as the (Drugs and Cosmetics (Amendment) Act, 2008) by both Houses in October 2008 and received Presidential assent in December 2008. The fact that this 2008 amendment provides for increased penalties for trafficking in spurious drugs is laudable; however, the

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The Mashelkar Committee Report on Incremental Patents: A 3-D Perspective

/ By / Uncategorized

The Mint carried an editorial of mine on the revised Mashelkar Committee Report. As with other previous posts on this blog, this is an attempt to bust prevailing myths regarding the Committee report and its association with section 3(d). Encouraging Drug Innovation The Mashelkar committee report on drug patent law may have stirred controversy, but it sets the right tone Shamnad Basheer In a momentous decision for Indian patent law and pharmaceutical innovation policy, the government this month accepted the

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