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.

Gauri Kamath on Drug "Differential Pricing" in India

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Gauri Kamath of Business World has an excellent review of the latest “differential pricing” efforts of MNC’s in India. Readers may know that SpicyIP is an ardent advocate of “differential pricing” strategies. See here for one of our posts which reviews Merck’s scheme relating to the anti-diabetic, Januvia. In fact, Gauri has referred to our SpicyIP post in her article as well. She ends by noting that “If Merck is able to win over doctors, regulators and public opinion, in […]

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AIDS Patent Rejection: Differential Patentability Standard for Essential Drugs?

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In our last post on HIV patent cases in India, we promised to bring you a more comprehensive analysis of the Nevirapine patent rejection. So here it is: The patent application by BI claimed the ARV (anti retroviral), Nevirapine, as a “hemi-hydrate solution”. More specifically, the patent claimed a composition containing an aqueous solution of nevirapine hemihydrate of particle size between 1-150 micron. The key advantage claimed by BI related to the particle size which made it more stable and

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HIV Patents in India: Will it Rain "Rejections"?

/ By / Patent

On the issue of HIV patents and oppositions at the Indian patent office, it’s literally “raining” news. So far, we have 3 significant developments in the last 2 weeks or so, and I’ve tried to summarise them below: 1. Pre Grant Oppostion to Gilead’s AIDS Drug, “Viread” Bhuma Srivastava of the Mint reports that: “Signalling mounting global resistance to patenting of drugs in India, a Brazilian public health group has filed an opposition in India against US drug maker Gilead

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"Inventing Around" Patents: Astra vs Mylan and Implications for the "Access" Debate

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In an earlier post, our guest blogger, Chris Ohly succinctly analysed a recent patent case involving Mylan (parent to home grown Matrix Labs) and Astra Zeneca, and fought over an anti heart burn drug “Prilosec”. The court held in favour of “non infringment” by Mylan, owing to the fact that Mylan had cleverly “worked around” or “invented around” the Astra patent. The decision hinged significantly on what term “Alkaline Reacting Compound (ARC)” meant. The court held that it did not

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Guest Post: Chris Ohly on the Omeprazole Patent Litigation

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We bring you another guest post from Chris Ohly, a reputed patent litigator and partner at a leading IP firm, Schiff Hardin. Chris’ profile can be found here. I have known Chris for a while now. Apart from all that is written on his firm website, Chris is one of the few US patent experts who is at equally at ease with the complex patent terrain in India (read “section 3(d)”!). I can’t think of anyone more suited for undertaking

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Guest Post by Latha Nair on the GI Controversy Surrounding "Pashmina"

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SpicyIP is pleased to bring you a guest post from a very renowned intellectual property practioner from India, Latha R Nair. She has a number of distinctions to her credit, but we list a few of them below: “She is a partner with the Delhi based law firm K&S Partners, one of the top IP firms in India. She received her Honors degree in Bachelor of Arts and Law from the National Law School of India University at Bangalore in

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Is the Indian Drug Controller Participating in the ACTA Negotiations?

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Pursuant to our post lamenting the “secrecy” with which the ACTA (Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) negotiations were shrouded, an anonymous source writes to inform us thus: “I am afraid that the new Indian Drugs Controller General is being briefed about the Treaty , its objectives etc as he has been (unlike any before him) invited to Canada and USA. The Indian Govt has become too inward- concerned to worry about these “conspiracies” concerning IP treaties from the West!” SpicyIP hasn’t

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Opposing Lack of Transparency in IP: KEI and Michael Geist on the ACTA

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Readers will recollect a post by Swaraj Barooah on the controversial anti counterfeiting treaty. SpicyIP is vehemently opposed to any move that flouts principles of transparency in such a heinous manner. This treaty is being negotiated behind closed doors by a handful of trade representatives from the US, EU etc. It has no developing country representation and a recent post by the famous Canadian cyberlaw academic and activist, Micheal Geist suggests that the negotiators are bound by a non-disclosure obligation–for

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SpicyIP Accolades: A Big Thank You to Our Readers

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We’d celebrated the month of May for having given us 3 IP decisions from the Supreme Court of India. For our previous posts on these decisions, please see here, here and here.SpicyIP listed in Lexis Nexis, Library of Congress and MIP It turns out that May has proved a good month for SpicyIP on other counts as well. We have been selected as a top IP blog by Lexis Nexis in every category of IP i.e. patent, copyrights and trademarks.

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Guest Post: The Rise and Fall of DRM?

/ By / Copyright

We bring you a guest post by Swaraj Barooah, an enterprising law student in his final year at NALSAR, Hyderabad (readers may recollect Aysha’s earlier post highlighting that NALSAR is now the number one law school in India). The Rise and Fall of DRM? The better part of the last decade saw the recording industry using Digital Rights Management (DRMs) as a form of copy-protection locking up digital media bought by customers for the prevention of illegal usage. The internet

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