The US Chamber of Commerce is at it again! Ranking India close to the bottom of its inane IP index. Unfortunately, some of our commentators have fallen prey to the seductive logic of these rankings and warned us in dire tones that if we didn’t ramp up our patent numbers, we’d suffer on the technological front. I’ve cautioned against this myopic vision in a recent op-ed in the Hindu. This comes close on the heels of a recent post by…
“Frozen” broke most box office records. And turned out to be the highest grosser for Disney studios. And yet this maverick of a movie almost never came to pass. Until a creative set of screen writers decided that they would stray from the parent script …one conjured up more than a century ago by Hans Christian Anderson, the celebrated childrens’ writer. Anderson wove his basic story around the “Snow Queen”, an evil queen who unleashes her freezing power upon the…
In a decision that will go down as a landmark in the annals of global copyright jurisprudence, Justice Pradeep Nandrajog (along with Justice Yogesh Khanna) brings bold clarity to a much needed area in copyright law. Namely that when interpreting copyright defences, one has to be guided by their “purpose”. And not some fancy sophisticated four factor fair use/fair dealing test, notwithstanding that it emerged from arguably sophisticated common law courts. Pankhuri has already dealt extensively with the decision…
In a world that is revealing itself to be distinctly devoid of any natural (human) intelligence, artificial intelligence might well turn out to be less scary than we imagined it to be. Indeed, some months ago, when a student of mine asked me if I wasn’t worried about machines taking over, I quipped that I was more worried about Trump taking over. And if Trump did come to pass as President, tis’ only appropriate that machines take us over, I…
To say that IP vs Competition interface is a contested one is an understatement. Indeed, much ink has been spilt on resolving the apparent tension inherent within! And into this murky territory, I decided to wade right in…to commemorate what is known celebrated as the “World Competition Day”. I was requested to do a piece on this theme by CUTS, a leading think tank in India (and globally as well) on trade and competition policy. Apart from traversing the obvious…
In a recent post, Prashant took issue with the IPA’s contention that the Indian governments’ latest move to extend the moratorium for state drug regulatory approvals from 4 years to 10 years results in a long and damaging data exclusivity. Who is right? And who is wrong? Once one begins to trudge down this rabbit hole in search of answers, one realises that the alleged data exclusivity norm is the least of our worries. We have a far more deadly…
(Image from here: Verse from Cohen’s “Anthem”) “And like that..poof…he [it] was gone!” These legendary lines describing the enigmatic Keyser Söze, (from a stunning suspense of a Hollywood thriller titled “The Usual Suspects”) could well have described Leonard Cohen’s tryst with copyright. For, before he knew it, he’d signed a bunch of papers that effectively divested him of all rights in “Suzanne”, a song that went on to propel him to stardom. But did he weep? Did he cry? No, in much…
Well, if Prabhakar Rao’s response to my op-ed in the Hindu is anything to go by, it would appear that is the executive (govt) that makes law in India. Never mind that the constitution says otherwise; and vests this power with our Parliament! Mr Rao clearly has his own constitutional handbook, drawing from which he notes: “As clarified by the government in the IPR Policy 2016, only the PPVFR Act, 2001 governs IP rights for transgenic varieties.” Firstly, whatever be…
In an earlier post, I noted that industry funding will, more often than not, carry the presumption of bias towards results that ultimately favour industry bottom-lines or priorities. Let me offer another example on industry funding and how it tends to slowly dry up when the dividends don’t yield. During my stint at the National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata (NUJS), I was approached by a prominent policy advocate (working in-house with a leading global IP giant), keen on finding…
Reddy vs Ragavan Industry funding into academic spaces has always been a bone of deep contention. Little wonder then that we’ve had sharply divergent views on this blog in the recent past. While Prof Srividya Ragavan cautioned against industry funding into the academic space on account of the potential for bias/industry capture, Prashant Reddy thinks it’s perfectly kosher; in fact, he goes on to endorse a greater infusion of industry funding into this space. The Mashelkar Massacre: While I’m no…