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.

"MASHELKAR COMMITTEE EFFECT" ON THE DATA EXCLUSIVITY DEBATE

/ By / Data Exclusivity

In a piece titled “Pharma firms will have to wait a while for data exclusivity norms”, the Economic Times states: “Call it the Mashelkar effect! The Satwant Reddy committee, which is examining whether MNCs should be allowed to guard their costly clinical data from local rivals, is unlikely to take a call on the issue in the near future. The decision has been taken considering the sensitive nature of the issue and the strong opposition NGOs and a section of […]

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Compulsory Licensing and TRIPS compatibility

/ By / Patent

It seems like the Thai compulsory licensing controversy is not the only one doing the rounds. A less controversial one (as it doesn’t deal with public health) is a complaint by Philips that a compulsory license issued in Taiwan over its CD patents is not compatible with TRIPS. IP Geek reports: “The European Commission has launched an in-depth investigation into the WTO consistency of the granting of compulsory licenses by Taiwan for recordable compact discs (CDRs) under the Trade Barriers

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RANBAXY vs PFIZER ("LIPITOR") SCORECARD

/ By / Uncategorized

I had posted on the Lipitor litigation sometime back and promised to come back with more analysis. The Lipitor litigation is unfortunately too complex and scattered to track. Here’s a helpful site that helps you track this. The IP Kat reports: “The Lipitor Scorecard is a popular feature of IP scholar and strategist Duncan Bucknell’s website. It charts the state of progress – and eventually the result – of the disputes between Ranbaxy and Pfizer over the Lipitor patent in

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INDIAN PATENTS AND THE RIGHT TO INFORMATION

/ By / Patent

  The Indian Patent Office website now has a separate section on what kind of information can be accessed under the “Right to Information Act”. I’m curious to know if any one has attempted to access information under this and what the results have been. I understand that the RTI was invoked in the context of the Tenofovir opposition. For those not familiar with this case, here is an extract from the South-North Development Monitor (SUNS) # 6027, 15 May

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NOVARTIS CASE TRANSFERRED TO THE IPAB

/ By / Uncategorized

Pursuant to the last post on this topic, the Madras (Chennai) High Court has transferred the Novartis matter to the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB). As I’d mentioned earlier, this is circuitous, as the matter is likely to find its way back to the High Court, by way of a writ petition against the order of the IPAB. For those of you interested in a succinct exposition of this case, read this article from IP-Watch, a news service that is

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NOVARTIS CASE BEFORE THE IPAB?

/ By / Uncategorized

Lawyer’s Collective, the leading public interest service provider in India that represents patient groups in the Novartis case does a great job of keeping us updated on what’s going on in court. Their latest email on the “commons law” email listserv talks about a potential shift of the Novartis proceedings from the High Court to the IPAB (Intellectual Property Appellate Board). “Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2007 01:25:12 -0700 (PDT)From: “chan park” To: [email protected], [email protected]: [Commons-Law] Novartis Update 3.4.07 The Indian

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ACADEMICS AND THEIR IMPACT ON THE JUDICIARY

/ By / Uncategorized

Just came across Adam Liptak’s interesting piece titled “When Rendering Decisions, Judges Are Finding Law Reviews Irrelevant” in the New York Times. Liptak captures an interesting judicial perspective on how relevant US law review articles really are. Very important lessons here, particularly for Indian academics that seek to make impact on the judiciary. Particularly relevant in the context of intellectual property, where we are bound to see a large number of cases in the post pharma patent environment. Unfortunately, the

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BIG PATENTS ARRIVE IN INDIA!! FIRST USEFUL PATENT DATABASE

/ By / Patent

As many of us know, the Indian Patent Office does not do a great job of making information publicly accessible/available. Currently, it publishes patent applications through its weekly journal, (in both print and electronic formats) containing only bare essentials such as the abstract, title of the invention, convention priority date and applicant details. A copy of the complete specification has to be requested in writing from the Patent Office. Apart from this, the Patent Facilitating Centre (PFC) of TIFAC provides

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CONSTRUCTIVELY ENGAGING WITH THE MASHELKAR COMMITTEE REPORT: A RESPONSE TO DWIJEN RANGNEKAR

/ By / Uncategorized

Dwijen Rangnekar, a prolific writer in the area of geographical indications (amongst other things), emailed me a copy of his recent article in the EPW (Economic and Political Weekly) dealing with the Mashelkar Committee Report, asking what I thought about it. Reluctant as I am in wasting any more time addressing the personal attacks generated by this report, Dwijen’s article is an exception, since it helpfully engages with the substance of the TRIPS arguments. I’ve been making a call for

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THE MASHELKAR COMMITTEE REPORT AND “INDUSTRY” CAPTURE ALLEGATIONS

/ By / Uncategorized

I was greeted this morning by a TOI editorial written by a colleague of mine from Oxford, Sudhir Krishnaswamy, who now teaches at the National Law School, Bangalore. I’ve always respected Sudhir as someone who exuded academic rigour—and was therefore surprised at reading an editorial that rested on superficial analysis and touted fancy terms. Even more surprising was the fact that this came after we had exchanged some communications on this theme in the past. Sudhir had emailed asking for

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