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.

The Indian Journal of Law and Technology – Information and Call for Submissions 2008-09

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The Indian Journal of Law and Technology, published by the Law and Technology Committee of the Student Bar Association of the National Law School of India University, Bangalore, is India’s first and only journal devoted to the field of law and technology. Articles are selected for publication after being peer reviewed by an external Article Review Board consisting of eminent academicians and practitioners in the field of technology law. The Journal is managed and edited by an Editorial Board comprising […]

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Cipla Takes on Roche Again: Valcyte vs Valcept

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Joe Mathew of the Business Standard reports that Cipla recently introduced Valcept, a generic equivalent of Roche’s patented Valcyte, an anti infective predominantly used by HIV patients: “This is the second instance of Cipla launching a low-cost version of Roche’s patent-protected drug after India’s amended patent law began to recognise product patents or patents for specific drugs instead of protection to the processes through which medicines are produced. While Roche had dragged Cipla to the court on the earlier occasion,

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Harry Potter vs Hari Puttar: If You Delay, You Will Pay

/ By / Trademark

In her recent post, Sumathi rightly points to the fact that Justice Khetrapal’s decision against Warner Brothers hinges substantially on: i) “Delay” In Taking Action Against Hari Puttar Despite knowledge of the defendant’s proposed movie title “Hari Puttar” in 2005, the judge finds that Warner Brothers sat on their rights and chose to approach the court only in 2008. In the court’s words: “It is settled law that if the plaintiffs stood by knowingly and let the defendants build up

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Scrabble vs Scrabulous: Reports on the Delhi High Court Judgment

/ By / Copyright, Trademark

After the Delhi High Court verdict in the high ticket Scrabble vs Scrabulous litigation, reports on this judgment have been pouring in. In an interesting editorial titled “Capitalism Kills the Fun “, the Mint states: “A court decision in India on Wednesday will be of much interest to hundreds of thousands in the global online community. A popular blog on intellectual property rights, SpicyIP, reported that the Delhi high court has ruled on a lawsuit against two Kolkata-based brothers’ online

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Breaking "Scrabulous" News: Mattel Wins on Trademark Claim but Loses on Copyright

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The Delhi High Court issued its decision today in the controversial and widely reported Scrabble vs Scrabulous matter, involving a global giant (Mattel) and 2 small Indian innovators (Rajat and Jayant Agarwala of Kolkata, who ran RJ Software). This is the gist of the decision: Trademarks i) The defendants (Agarwala brothers) were restrained from using SCRABULOUS, SCRABBLE or any other deceptively similar trademark. ii) The brothers were also restrained from metatagging, hyperlinking or including the infringing trademarks in the source

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GSK, EMR’s and the Supreme Court: A Legal Conundrum?

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Pursuant to Sai’s well written post outlining the various nuances of the Supreme Court judgment in the Exclusive Marketing Rights (EMR) case involving GSK, the following issue springs to mind: What will GSK ultimately achieve from this order? It appears to me that the net effect of the order is merely academic i.e that GSK would be vindicated in its stand that the Controller was wrong in denying its applicaiton for an EMR. To recapitulate the essence of the order,

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SpicyIP Poll: Does the Name "Hari Puttar" Make You Think of "Harry Potter"?

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I’m assuming that most of our readers are familiar with the Harry Potter vs Hari Puttar controversy before the Delhi High Court. Justice Reva Khetrapal is expected to issue her decision any day now. For those that came in late, do check out Sumathi’s well researched posts on this big ticket litigation, that is expected to delineate the scope of “trademark” rights over movie titles. Prashant also raised a very interesting “free speech” issue in his post here. Article 19(1)

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Making India Innovative: A New Indian Innovation Act?

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Close on the heels of a Bayh Dole type bill that we have been blogging about, the government is considering introducing an “Innovation Act”. News reports regarding this legislation began pouring in since 2007. See this FICCI press release here and this Economic Times Report which announced this legislative endeavour on Sept 11, 2007. The ET report noted that: ““We want to bring in an India Innovation Act to spur innovation in India, for which we would like Ficci (Federation

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India’s Bayh Dole Bill: A Stitch in Haste Leads to Waste

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SciDev.Net (Science and Development Network), a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to providing reliable and authoritative information about science and technology for the developing world, commissioned me to write a short note on India’s Bayh Dole bill, which I reproduce below. We’ve been tracking this bill for a while now, and despite our best efforts (and those of several leading journalists in India who have covered this issue), the government continues to keep this bill a “secret”. Indian patent bill: Let’s not

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Novartis "Glivec" Case: Supreme Court In Favour of a "Technical" IPAB

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Joe C Mathew, a leading pharma/patent analyst with the Business Standard has this very interesting account of the Supreme Court proceedings in the Novartis case. He notes in pertinent part that: “The Supreme Court on Tuesday suggested that the Centre should consider having an expert member on the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB) that reviews decisions of the Indian patent office. Hearing the case, Justice SH Kapadia and Justice B Sudershan Reddy suggested that the central government should consider the

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