Swaraj Paul Barooah

Tahir Amin (Co-founder of I-MAK) on behalf of the World Health Organization (South-East Asia and Western Pacific Regions) has written a very useful step-by-step guide on searching for patents on medicines. Given that procuring generic medicines is no longer free from IP considerations, this guide could be especially useful in developing countries. The guide is also an attempt at filling the void on material on this subject. The guide, titled “How to Conduct Patent Searches for Medicines” introduces beginners to…

Trademark

Guest Post: A Defence of Non-Conventional Trademarks

by Swaraj Paul Barooah September 16, 2010

3 Comments

We bring to you an excellent piece covering a portion of trademark law that is not often discussed in India – non-visual trademarks. This post is brought to us by Vatsala Sahay, an enterprising 4th year student of NLSIU. Without further ado: A Defence of Non-Conventional Trademarks Vatsala Sahay Non-conventional trademarks represent an exciting branch of trademark law. While in India, apart from the shape of the Zippo lighter, the Yahoo yodel and the sound mark registered by Allianz Aktiengesellschaft,…

Patent

WSJ mixing up issues in Access to Drugs debate?

by Swaraj Paul Barooah September 2, 2010

1 Comment

Recently our friends over at Afro-IP brought to light an article by Alec van Gelder in the WSJ on the problem of access to medicines in Africa. While the article is specific to the problems in Africa, its points about lack of infrastructure and diversion of money being major barriers to access are true across almost all developing countries. [Unfortunately the article is only fully available to subscribers.] The article goes on to state that Big Pharma has been made…

Critique of the IPRI reports

by Swaraj Paul Barooah August 11, 2010

Access to Medicine groups call for a halt on USTR’s 301 Process

by Swaraj Paul Barooah July 29, 2010

SpicyIP Tidbit: IP-Watch requires help

by Swaraj Paul Barooah July 6, 2010

2 Comments

As many of our readers may know, IP-Watch is a great source for international IP and IP policy news. They have often served as a terrific resource for us at SpicyIP as well. As they rightly put it, they have “provoked debate, exposed controversies, and helped thousands to access a policy conversation long seen as highly technical and closed.” They usually keep most of their online content free, while ensuring that all of it is free to developing country readers. This morning, they have…

Innovation

An overview of the ‘Health Impact Fund’ model for accessible medicines

by Swaraj Paul Barooah July 6, 2010

3 Comments

A few quick facts before I jump into my post. US, EU and Japan together account for roughly 90% of the revenues received by pharmaceutical firms, and thus by far, are their largest money generators. Developed countries comprise of 16-20% of the global population Neglected diseases (or Type III diseases) receive about 2-3% of the global pharmaceutical R&D Even India, the ‘pharmacy of the developing world’, only 10% of R&D funding of the top 12 leading Indian pharma companies focus…

Innovation Patent

Patent Pools as Innovation Policy

by Swaraj Paul Barooah June 11, 2010

1 Comment

A few days ago marked the final step in the establishment of UNITAID initiated patent pool, with negotiations with drug companies expected to start soon. This got me thinking about the viability of patent pools as a concept, in the endeavour to create better, cheaper (or in some cases, just create) drugs for developing country diseases. As a clarification, I do not know exactly what kind of model UNITAID’s patent pool is using. I am simply raising some general questions…

SpicyIP Tidbit: US NGOs go after GWU IP summit too

by Swaraj Paul Barooah June 11, 2010

2 Comments

Recently we had posted on the controversies surrounding the GWU-CII summit, primarily alleging that GWU had allowed the summit to be used for propaganda by Big Pharma. While Indian civil organisations had written letters to the Minister of Commerce earlier, 9 US NGOs have now also written to GWU calling for a stop to the fronting of biased industry-sponsored training in India. These include NGOs such as Universities Allied for Essential Medicines, MSF, Oxfam, KEI, etc. Notably, the letter specifically points…

India, Brazil start dispute proceedings against EU.

by Swaraj Paul Barooah May 18, 2010

6 Comments

In what is hopefully the beginning of the end of the controversial EU regulation 1383/2003, under which seizures have been taking place at borders of EU countries for drugs in transit from and to developing countries, last week India and Brazil launched a trade dispute against EU by requesting for consultation proceedings. SpicyIP has been following this dispute in a series of posts since its development. As per the WTO dispute settlement proceedings, now there are two possible outcomes. The…

Shobhit { Mathews, on your point (i), the point is not over-valuation or under-valuation anymore, but correct valuation. If a brand owner 'correctly values' its IP, for perhaps 98% of... }
Mathews P. George { Thanks for the comments. i) It is not clear as to how this judgment will lead to over-valuation and flooding of cases in the high court. The more... }
Priya Sharma { I wasn't aware that one protects the design of the jewellery by copyrighting it. I think this will really make it possible for one to understand the importance... }
Akeo Blockchain Development { Hi Adarsh, Thanks for the information, very insightful post with clarity. Keep-up the good work }
Tom Bale { Thank you so much for the post you do and also I like your post. Now a days trade mark registration is on demand as people need this... }

De-Coding Indian Intellectual Property Law