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.

Patents vs Patients: Cipla’s Victory and the Evolution of New “Compulsory Licensing” Norms

/ By / Patent

The verdict is finally out and we had blogged on the Roche vs CIPLA controversy here, here and here. More recently, Prashant did a short note on Justice Bhat’s judgment here. Extremely well researched judgment—I’m guessing that the judge was helped by a very bright law student (as law clerk). The influence of law clerks on the Indian judiciary is beginning to be felt and will make an excellent topic of research for those of you willing to investigate this […]

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SpicyIP Jobs: Patent Attorney and University Patent Consultant for US Firm

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A friend of mine who works for a US corporation out of Bangalore informs me that they are looking to hire. I extract portions of his email to me spelling out what the respective jobs entail. If you are interested in either of these positions, please write to me at [email protected], with your resume. Please also specify which of the below positions you intend to apply to. Also, please feel free to forward this announcement to friends etc who might

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SpicyIP Guest Series: Chris Ohly and Sal Patel on the US Patent Reform Bill

/ By / Innovation

In a previous post, we promised to bring you a guest post by a well reputed and leading patent litigator in the US, Chris Ohly. Chris has now sent us a very incisive piece on the latest US patent reform bill (co-authored with Sailesh Patel, another brilliant patent attorney and partner at Schiff Hardin). In particular, they focus on the highly contentious “damages” provision. Unfortunately, blogger does not permit me to post footnotes. I’ve therefore uploaded the complete version of

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SpicyIP Tidbits: More News on the Indian Bayh Dole

/ By / Patent

More news on the proposed Indian Bayh Dole (titled the “Public Funded R&D Protection, Utilization and Regulation of Intellectual Property) Bill” 2007). When it rains, it pours!! For our earlier posts on this theme, see here and here. “Down to Earth” carries a stinging critique of the secrecy with which the proposed Bayh Dole legislation for India has been shrouded. And argues that this secrecy could have been because some of the provisions are clearly against public interest. In contrast,

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Natco vs Roche/Pfizer: Hearing on the Right to Hearing

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Lawyers Collective (LC) has this excellent update on the latest hearing in the Natco vs Roche/Pfizer compulsory licensing matter. As we stated in previous posts, the current controversy is around whether or not the patentees, Roche and Pfizer should be heard in the matter. Although the patents act does not explicitly provide the right to a hearing, the patentees argue that under a very liberal reading of the text of the statute (and keeping in line with the spirit of

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Indian Bayh Dole in the News: Faith Based IP vs Empiricism

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Our efforts at sparking up some interest in the proposed Bayh Dole style legislation in India pays off. As readers may be aware, SpicyIP reported on this issue here (this post links back to earlier posts on the theme). We were very concerned with the secretive way in which this bill was sought to be introduced–hopefully with more journalists picking up on this theme, the government will come under some pressure to be a little more open and transparent here.

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Bollywood and Patents: A Hooker’s Narrative of “Exploitation”!

/ By / Patent

When I visited one of my friends recently in London, I found that he was deeply engrossed in a bollywood flick titled “Laaga Chunri Mein Daag“. The femme fatale, Rani Mukherjee (my reason for suffering the movie) plays the role of a high class hooker. She finally meets her hero (Abhishek Bachan)—and lo and behold, he turns out to be a world famous patent attorney from India!! And one scene even has him speak at a world patent and trademark

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US Patent Reform: Implications for Indian Pharma

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CH Unni of the Mint reported sometime back on the US patent reform and how it was likely to impact Indian pharma companies. He notes in particular that: “Indian pharmaceutical firms, which make most of their revenues and profits from the manufacture of off-patent, or generic, drugs, are set to play a larger role in the US, the world’s biggest drug market. That is, if a US plan to reform patent laws by including provisions for what is called post-grant

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Exporting Bayh Dole to India: Potential Lessons from a Duke Study

/ By / Patent

In earlier posts analysing the Indian version of the Bayh Dole legislation and its implications (see here and here), we noted as below: “…the bill also does not give an inventor the discretion to decide whether or not his/her invention is best left in the public domain. Rather, such a discretionary right is only given to the government funding agency (section 5 (3)). As our readers can appreciate, in some critical areas of science, it may make sense to encourage

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Natco vs Pfizer: Today’s Hearing at the Patent Office

/ By / Patent

The Assistant Controller (Delhi Patent Office), Mr Dev Karar heard counsels appearing for Natco and Pfizer today. The hearing was limited to the interlocutory petition filed by Natco challenging the legality of the “hearing” granted to Pfizer. The Asst Controller stated that he would issue a decision on this in about 10 days or so. For our previous posts on this case, see here, here, here and here. Interestingly, I had interviewed Dev Karar some years back for a paper

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