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.

Bayer vs Cipla: Attempting "Patent Linkage" In India

/ By / Drug Regulation

The writ petition filed by Bayer against the Union of India (UOI) and Cipla came up for hearing on the 17th, 18th and then the 25th of February. For those not familiar with this story, please see our previous post. In essence, Bayer filed a writ against the UOI, praying that the DCGI (Drug Controller General of India) be restrained from granting any drug approval to Cipla’s generic version of their patented drug, Sorefanib (sold as “Nexavar”). The key ground […]

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Guest Post on Software Patenting in India

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We bring you a guest post on software patents from Essenese Obhan, a leading patent attorney from New Delhi. Essenese is the founding partner of an IP boutique, Obhan & Associates. Prior to founding Obhan & Associates in 2007, he worked for a number of years with Anand and Anand, India’s leading IP firm. While Essenese himself is an expert on patents relating to the mechanical, industrial, software, and telecom sectors, the Obhan team includes associates that specialize in chemical,

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Guest Post on Patent Examiners and Labour Markets

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We bring you a guest post by Chirantan Chatterjee, a very bright doctoral student in Policy & Management, at the Carnegie Mellon University. Chirantan is interested in exploring the Indian labour market for Indian patent examiners. For those interested, please write to him at chirantan[at]cmu.edu. How do I know what you know? – Except if I am Einstein… In a world of dwindling economies, rising impetus for governmental assistance to bail out firms, and protectionist policies to resurrect domestic industries

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Report on NUJS Event: “Injunctions v. Damages in IP Cases by Justice Sikri

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Pursuant to a talk by Justice Arjan Sikri on Injunctions vs Damages in IP cases, we bring you a detailed note on the talk, painstakingly prepared by Prakruthi Gowda, one of the top students at NUJS. Please join me in thanking Prakruthi for documenting this talk so well and thereby advancing the cause of IP education in India. Talk on “Injunctions v. Damages in Intellectual Property Cases” by Justice Arjan K. Sikri(Prepared by Prakruthi Gowda, 4th year, NUJS, Kolkata) The

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Talk at NUJS: US Legal Education and Culturing Google To Copyright

/ By / Copyright

Two very distinguished academics are visiting NUJS, Kolkata on the 19th of February (Thursday). Professor Frederick Lawrence, Dean of the George Washington University Law School and a leading civil rights expert will speak on US legal education. His talk is titled: “”Globalization of the American law curriculum”. During his talk, he will also focus on the LLM and other higher law degree programs in the US. His talk will be followed by that of Professor David Nimmer, a leading copyright

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Dr Reddys and the "Losartan" Controversy: Forced to Cave In?

/ By / Patent

It appears that given the paucity of time to obtain legal advice and the threat of their consignment being destroyed, Dr Reddy’s Labs (DRL) thought the most prudent option would be to cave in and ask that the goods be returned to India. But first, for those not familiar with this dispute yet, a bit of background: “On 15 January, Mint had reported that a DRL shipment of the generic version of losartan was seized in transit in the Netherlands.

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Does SpicyIP Moderate Comments?

/ By / Uncategorized

You bet we do. It all began when I wrote something related to Brazilian patent law and received a comment asking me to take a look at a certain Brazilian resort that offered the heady triple cocktail of sun, sand and s… So, what kind of comments will not pass muster? i) Comments that have no bearing on the subject matter of the post: typically, the “spam” stuff, such as the incredibly tempting Brazilian offer above. ii) Comments that amount

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"Decompilation" Defence under Indian Copyright Law: Redundant?

/ By / Copyright

Section 52 (1) (ab) of the Indian Copyright Act provides what is commonly referred to as the “decompilation” defence and exempts from infringement: “the doing of any act necessary to obtain information essential for operating inter-operability of an independently created computer programme with other programmes by a lawful possessor of a computer programme provided that such information is not otherwise readily available” How effective is this “decompilation” defence under Indian copyright law? I ask because in one of my competition

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EPO Gets Access to India’s Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL)

/ By / Patent

The ambitious traditional knowledge digital library (TKDL), successfully completed by CSIR (under VK Gupta’s stewardship) is now accessible to the EPO, thanks to an agreement signed recently between the Indian government and the EPO. Radhika Pandeiya and Jacob Koshy of The Mint broke this story (online) today, including myriad comments on what this means for India in terms of the much bandied about TK misappropriation debates (turmeric patenting etc). And what ought to the future policy direction in relation to

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Justice Arjan Sikri Talk at NUJS: Injunctions vs Damages in IP Cases

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Justice Arjan Sikri of the Delhi High Court is visiting NUJS over the coming weekend. As many of our readers may know, he is one of the most well regarded judges in India today and has authored some excellent decisions, particularly in the field of intellectual property law. In 2007, he was chosen as one of the 50 most influential persons in Intellectual Property globally in a survey conducted by Managing Intellectual Property (MIP). He will speak this coming Saturday

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