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.

Indian Supreme Court on an "IP" Roll: "Scotch" Whisky Denied Protection While Music "Compulsory Licensing" Scope Expanded

/ By / Copyright, Trademark

As temperatures continue to soar in New Delhi, the Supreme Court of India hands down three IP decisions—and all within a span of a month. Leading one to paradoxically muse in this blisteringly hot month, “When it rains, it really pours!” All three decisions were penned by Justice Sinha, one of the finer Supreme Court judges on the bench today. Constitutional law scholars will remember his landmark judgment in a sex discrimination case, Anuj Garg v. Hotel Association of India. […]

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Australian Publisher Seeks Writers For "insider" News on Indian Tech Industry

/ By / Uncategorized

SpicyIP was requested to pass on the following message to the readers of SpicyIP by DJ Varma, an Australia based journalist who publishes Techgoss , a website that reports on the inside stories in the Indian IT, BPO and KPO industry. “Do you know of or are working on interesting legal/IP cases about the IT, BPO, KPO, search engines, social networking sites and other elements of the booming tech sector? Techgoss reports on the inside stories in the IT/BPO and

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Roche vs Cipla: Was Roche’s Legal Strategy Flawed?

/ By / Uncategorized

Readers may recollect our earlier post on legal strategy in the context of the famous Novartis (Glivec) patent dispute. I compared the patent strategies of Roche and Novartis and noted: “Compare and contrast Novartis’ aggressive and weakly thought out patent strategy with that of Roche, which has gone on to acquire four patents already. Its patent covering pegylated interferon (Pegasus) has now been challenged in a post grant opposition, but one hardly hears of this in the press. Roche has

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KS Jayaraman on Biotech Patents and the Future of Compulsory Licensing

/ By / Patent

KS Jayaraman, one of India’s most well known science journalists (now with “Nature”), has written a very interesting piece on biotech patents and the prospects of compulsory licensing in developing countries such as India, Brazil and Thailand. Apart from two minor mistakes (he assumes that Tarceva is a biotech drug; and that “non emergency” compulsory licensing grounds in India came about only after 2005), the piece is a very good read. “Patent Threat in Emerging Economies Shifts to Biotech”“Recently revamped

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Indian Patent Database: Relevant Links

/ By / Patent

Pursuant to our earlier post (covering the government response to our petition for an electronic patent database), here are the links to the relevant portions of the Indian patent office website. 1. For copies of granted patents, see here (as was mentioned in the last post, as per the government response, you should be able to access the complete specifications of about 100,000 patents) 2. For copies of Controllers Decisions, see here. However, when last checked, this was not working

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Indian Patent Database: Government Response to SpicyIP Petition

/ By / Patent

The government finally responded to our online petition requesting a comprehensive electronic patent database. We thank our readers for their wholehearted support for this petition which garnered around 170 signatures and can be found here. I reproduce the government response below: “No. 8/33/20007-IPR-III Government of India Ministry of Commerce & Industry Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion Udyog Bhawan, New Delhi, Dated 17th April, 2008 To, Shri Shamnad Basheer, Sub : Making Indian Patent Information Public. Sir, Kindly refer to

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Spicy Tidbits: FICCI Working Group on Indian Patent Office

/ By / Uncategorized

SpicyIP had earlier noted the recent dynamism at FICCI in terms of its IP activities and initiatives. SpicyIP has now learnt that FICCI and DIPP (Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, the nodal agency for all IP matters in India) have set up a Consultative Working Group consisting of representatives from industry, law firms, government and the office of Controller General of Patents, Trade Marks and Designs to brainstorm ideas for improving the working of the Indian patent office. Within

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The Parallel Import Debate in India: Some Concluding Thoughts

/ By / Patent

Section 107A(b) of the Indian Patents Act dealing with parallel imports has turned out to be one of the most contentious provisions on this blog. We had several posts covering this issue and one of them elicited more than 35 comments. I thank readers for engaging in this fascinating discussion which helped deepen my own understanding of this section. Surprisingly, many of our commentators never revealed their identity, making it impossible for one to see where they were coming from

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Merck vs Roche: Towards Differential Pricing in India

/ By / Uncategorized

SpicyIP has often lamented the lack of a robust differential pricing model by big pharma. As our earlier post demonstrated, Roche charges the same (or even more) in India than it does in the US and other “developed” countries! Granted there is the oft touted threat of “parallel imports”. However, I’m not sure as to the likely quantum of losses from such parallel imports into the more developed markets and whether such losses would be severe as to make serious

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SpicyIP Tidbits: Jyothi Datta on the Bayh Dole Bill and CII Event

/ By / Uncategorized

Jyothi Datta, a very well respected IP and pharma journalist with the Hindu Business Line does her second report on the controversial Bayh Dole bill. We had blogged on her first piece here. For all our previous posts relating to the Bayh Dole controversy, see here. Her second report stresses that “The draft Bill needs a public debate to create the right environment for innovation protection and to ensure access to critical products developed through Government-funded research”. Interestingly, she mentions

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