Swaraj Paul Barooah

I recently came across two very interesting articles, the ideas of which our policy makers would do well to keep in mind. The first, a broadly focused piece, titled “Between Innovation and Progress“ is a response by Prof Siva Vaidhyanathan (Univ of Virginia) to the interestingly poised question “Has “innovation” supplanted the idea of progress?“. The second piece, more specific to India, is the opening editorial in the “Science in India” special issue of the highly respected “Nature” science journal, titled…

Drug Regulation Patent

I-MAK takes on Sovaldi patents around the world

by Swaraj Paul Barooah June 9, 2015

1 Comment

The Initiative for Medicines, Access & Knowledge (I-MAK), along with various other local organizations, has launched challenges on Gilead’s patent applications for it’s Hepatitis C drug, Sovaldi (sofosbuvir) in 5 countries – Argentina, Brazil, China, Russia and Ukraine. These 5 countries together account for about 30%-40% of the Hepatitis C patients in the world (about 40 – 60 million out of an estimated 150 million to 185 million patients across the world). However, for reasons best known to Gilead, these 5 countries…

“King Copyright” has no place in a Democracy

by Swaraj Paul Barooah May 16, 2015

2 Comments

A few weeks ago, the Centre for Internet and Society and the Observer Research Foundation organized a conference focusing on “Freedom of Expression in a Digital Age” in association with the Internet Policy Observatory of the Center for Global Communication Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. For their panel on “Balancing Freedom of Expression and other digital rights”, I was invited to discuss Copyrights in this context. While I wasn’t able to make it to the Conference, I did send in a…

Innovation Others Overlaps in IP Patent

National IPR Policy – Who Makes it in India?!

by Swaraj Paul Barooah May 5, 2015

4 Comments

[Long post ahead. But it mostly consists of a timeline of events regarding formation of / comments on Indian IP policy over the last 9 months – a timeline that paints a very worrying picture!]. [Editor’s note: Minor additions have been made to the timeline based on comments received – 6/5/2015] Last week, in an email Shamnad sent to our subscribers, as well as in my post “Modi shames India, calls patent laws under-developed“, we noted how Modi’s referral to…

Innovation Patent

Modi shames India, calls patent laws under-developed

by Swaraj Paul Barooah April 30, 2015

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In a stark volte-face from decades of where the Indian government has stood on its patent laws, the Indian Prime Minister recently issued some worrying lines, with very worrisome public-health implications. As per Business Standard, “Though he spoke in Hindi, what he said was to the effect that “India must also work on intellectual property rights guidelines to match global standards.“” LiveMint reports further – that while speaking at the Commerce Ministry’s first Global Exhibition on Services, Modi said, “If we don’t work towards bringing our…

Innovation Others Privacy

Faith (in IP) be damned! (But Happy World IP Day!)

by Swaraj Paul Barooah April 26, 2015

1 Comment

Thanks to the social media turn of more and more academics, I recently came across a new essay by Prof Mark Lemley, one of the most prolific IP personalities around today, focusing specifically on an issue we’ve noted as problematic for years on the blog now – the conflict between “Faith” and “Fact” based IP. From World IP Day in 2008 (“Faith based IP to Fact based IP“), to a post just a couple of months ago (“Dodgy IP Dogma“) –…

Tidbit: Job Opportunity at International Trademark Association

by Swaraj Paul Barooah April 22, 2015

SJM, Sangh Parivar’s economic wing, raises concerns with draft IPR Policy

by Swaraj Paul Barooah April 1, 2015

Data exclusivity back on the table for India

by Swaraj Paul Barooah March 27, 2015

8 Comments

D.G. Shah, Secretary General of the Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance sends us news that will be of interest to many of our readers. He says, “… Government plans to introduce a Pesticides (Amendment) Bill in the Parliament during the current session. The Bill has a provision that not only makes India’s Intellectual Property (IP) regime TRIPS Plus but would also eliminate competition and create legal monopoly for agro-chemicals and pesticides making them unaffordable to small farmers. The Bill proposes to introduce…

Drug Regulation Others Patent