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 Office Investigation into ‘Negligent" Pharma Patent Grants

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For quite sometime now, CH Unni of the Mint has been striving towards enhacing transparency norms at the patent office. And has met with considerable success on this front. A couple of weeks back, he reported on the fact that a number of pharma patents were granted, where it appeared that the patent office did not check for compliance with section 3(d). Pursuant to his report, the patent office ordered an investigation. Not only does Unni need to be lauded […]

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India’s "TRIPS" Case Against the EU: How Strong is It?

/ By / Patent

In two media interviews, I opined that India may not have much of a “TRIPS” case against the EU in relation to the seizure of “in transit” consignments. After a careful study of the TRIPS provisions in this regard and some of the literature, I have to admit that I might have been wrong in my estimate: the case seems stronger that I had initially thought. I’m still researching the issue and will articulate my final analysis in the days

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Kolkata IP Event: The Psychology of IP Protection and Anti Counterfeiting

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A reminder that NUJS (National University of Juridical Sciences), Kolkata is hosting Professor Avi Choudhury, a reputed Canadian academic and Shwetasree Majumder, a leading IP litigator for a round-table on issues relating to anti counterfeiting tomorrow (29th of Jan) between 3 and 5.30 pm (in Room 006, Ambedkar Bhavan, NUJS) All are welcome to attend. But if you wish to attend, please send me an email (shamnad[at]gmail.com) so that I have some idea of the numbers. The campus of NUJS

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NUJS Event: Anti Counterfeiting Talk by Prof Avi Chaudhuri

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As many of you may know, I joined NUJS (National University of Juridical Sciences), a law school in Kolkata a couple of months back. We’re doing a series of IP events and I wanted to take this opportunity to invite our readers that are based out of Kolkata (or are in Kolkata on any of those days) for these events. To begin with, Professor Avi Chaudhuri, a very distinguished Canadian academic will deliver a talk at NUJS on the 29th

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Indian Patent Office Breaks with Tradition and Gets a New Chief

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SpicyIP just learnt that a career bureaucrat (IAS officer) has taken over as the new Controller General of the Indian Patent Office. SpicyIP congratulates Mr PH Kurian, a 1986 IAS (Indian Administrative Service) Officer on his appointment as the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trademarks (CGPDTM). Mr Kurian’s appointment signals a fundamental break with tradition, as hitherto, the Indian IP office has always been headed by an insider (typically an examiner at the IP office who has risen through

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The Drug Patent Linkage Fiasco Continues

/ By / Drug Regulation, Patent

Pursuant to our last post pointing to a highly egregious Delhi High Court order that came close to mandating patent linkage in contravention of existing law, a number of news reports have emerged on this theme. For those interested, please see Mint Report by Unni and Radhika; ET report by Khomba Singh, and most recently, see Peter Ollier’s report in MIP. Interestingly, there is a short analysis in DNA by someone going by the name of “Pillman”–does anyone know who

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Breaking News: Court Orders Indian Drug Controller to "Police" Patents

/ By / Drug Regulation, Patent

I was rather perturbed to learn of a recent Delhi High Court decision which clearly transgressed existing laws/regulations by forcing a linkage between patent and drug regulatory issues. In particular, it directed the Indian Drug Controller (DCGI) to don the mantle of a “patent policing” authority by ensuring that regulatory applications submitted by generic manufacturers do not violate patent rights of originator companies. Readers may recollect an earlier post, which warned against burdening the drug controller with such a patent

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New Year Wishes: The Dawning of a "Collaborative" Era

/ By / Patent

This comes a bit late–but, as they say, better late than never. Here’s wishing all our readers a wonderful New Year ahead. We have much to thank you for. Amongst all the New Year greetings received, the one that really stood out for me was one from Ms Anuradha Maheswari, who runs the Institute of Intellectual Property Studies (IIPS), a wonderful IP academy that does a lot to improve the lot of IP education in this country. She quotes Kahlil

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Ghajini vs Fudgini: Whither Originality?

/ By / Copyright

We bring you a guest post from Nikhil Krishnamurthy, a leading Indian copyright lawyer and someone who’s already blogged with us earlier. He comments on a recent Bollywood movie, Ghajini that appears to be raking in the moolah, and more noteably, has been in the news in relation to a copyright infringement claim against it before both the Madras and the Mumbai High Courts. The claims in both these suits are not entirely clear to me. Are these related suits

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Informal Innovators: Any Good Hearted Patent Attorneys?

/ By / Innovation, Patent

Given an earlier post on “Informal Innovation”, I thought it quite fitting to share with you an email that I’d received from an “informal” innovator. “Dear Sir,Basically I am very small business man doing business related to septic tank installation work in Dehradun (Uttrakhand). I innovated a new idea, where the efficiency of septic tank can be enhanced. I contacted to National Innovation Foundation (NIF) to help me to get patent of my invention but they told that they only

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