Author name: Thomas J. Vallianeth

Thomas is a final year law student at the National Law University, Jodhpur pursuing a B.Sc. LL.B. (IP Hons.) course. His first exposure to IP law was at a workshop that he attended in High School and ever since then, he has pursued a keen interest in the field. However, his real interests lie in the interfaces between Technology Law and IP, with an active interest in the Open Source movement.

SC Nationalises Copyright and TM Enforcement….Well, somewhat (Part 2 of 2)

/ By / Copyright, Trademark

This two post series is an analysis of the case of IPRS v. Sanjay Dalia, recently decided by the Supreme Court of India. It dealt with the sticky question as to whether a plaintiff may sue in for Copyright or TM infringement in a jurisdiction when there exists another jurisdiction in which the plaintiff has an office and where a part or the whole of the cause of action arose. Part I analysed the application of the Heydon’s rule in …

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SC Nationalises Copyright and TM Enforcement….Well, somewhat (Part 1 of 2)

/ By / Competition Law, Trademark

IPRS v. Sanjay Dalia Read the decision here. In what will perhaps go down as a prominent decision in IP jurisprudence, the Supreme Court on Wednesday clarified the law on where Copyright and TM infringement suits could be filed. It held that these suits could be instituted only in the District Court that exercised jurisdiction over the place where the cause of action (in whole or in part) arose, if the plaintiffs instituting the suit had an office in that …

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SpicyIP Tidbit: India’s Draft Medical Device Policy – Focus on Standards and Innovation

/ By / Innovation

On the blog here, we’ve been huge fans of transparency in standards and innovation. In fact, a while ago we had blogged about how the Indian standards system is fairly opaque and how there are some major access problems (see here and Swaraj’s post here). The thrust of these posts was that the Bureau of Indian Standards, the standard setting organisation has locked these standards up behind fairly expensive payment systems when they are critical to the everyday lives of …

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SpicyIP Tidbit: OnePlus Settles its OS Dispute, Indian Phone Owners to Receive Updates

/ By / Copyright, Trademark

In what will come as a welcome development to most Indian OnePlus One smartphone owners, OnePlus has resolved its legal dispute over exclusive rights with Cyanogen by “mutual consent”. The dispute was filed in the Delhi High Court in December last year by Micromax complaining that they had an exclusive license agreement with Cyanogen for the Cyanogen Operating System (that also powers the OnePlus One) in a few South Asian countries. Micromax argued therefore that OnePlus was not entitled to …

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Confidentiality and Copyright: The Bombay High Court clarifies the interface

/ By / Copyright

Beyond Dreams Entertainment and Ors. v. Zee Entertainment Enterprises and Anr. In the entertainment industry, with sometimes long drawn out production processes involving multiple players, scripts and production notes are often exchanged, with the promise of confidence. Differences that then arise between these players leads to litigation for these scripts and production notes, and two particular causes of action are commonly employed in these claims – breach of confidence and infringement of copyright. This post attempts to demonstrate through an …

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The Government of India Adopts Open Source Software: We Approve!

/ By / Others

In a period that has witnessed a revolution in the way India perceives technology and its dynamics (yes, I’m talking about Shreya Singhal) comes another heartening development. The Government of India has adopted a policy of utilising, where available, Open Source Software (“OSS”) to fulfil its software requirements in Central Government organisations for e-Governance applications systems and while replacing existing software applications. The Central Government has also indicated that it is open to the States (the State of Tamil Nadu …

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SpicyIP Tidbit: Expansion of Investigation by DG in the Auto Spare Parts Case Valid – Madras HC

/ By / Competition Law

Read the decision here. In a decision that we had reported on a while ago, the Competition Commission of India, had fined a number of automobile manufacturers for anti-competitive practices in the sale of their spare parts. After the order of the Commission, various auto manufacturers have filed writs in High Courts challenging the order and even the functioning and vires of the Commission itself. The present writ petition however was filed a while ago in 2012 as a challenge …

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A Belated SpicyIP Weekly Review (Jan 5th to 10th, 2015)

/ By / Others

The biggest development of the week and the SpicyIP highlight of the week was Spadika’s post on the Hathi Trust litigation. The litigation revolved around a suit for copyright infringement against Hathi Trust that was digitising books to improve access to the disabled and to preserve old and damaged books. She writes that the parties have come to a settlement that allows such digitisation, and that this concluded the litigation. A huge win for Fair Use and accessibility I might …

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Delhi High Court to Test the Vires of S.15(2) of the Copyright Act: Mukul Goyal v. UoI

/ By / Design

Before the year ends, we thought it fit to bring you a hard hitting IP development that will have significant ramifications for the future of the copyright design interface. The highly controversial S.15(2) of the Indian Copyright Act has come under the juridical scanner of the Delhi High court in Mukul Goyal v. Union of India and Ors. (W.P. 8356 of 2014). Anand and Anand in a commendable effort is representing the petitioner who is raising a constitutional challenge under …

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Injunction Against OnePlus Vacated: Del HC Advises Caution While Granting Orders Without Hearing the Other Side

/ By / Trademark

If someone were to study injunctions and the law applicable to them, the SEP wars raging on in the Delhi High Court would provide some confusing perspectives. We had blogged a while ago about the injunction granted against OnePlus in a suit initiated by Micromax for the prevention of the breach of an exclusive license agreement with Cyanogen for the CyanogenMod OS. OnePlus appealed this before the Division Bench of the Delhi High Court which vacated the ad-interim injunction. Quite …

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