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.

SpicyIP Review (7th to 20th December, 2014)

/ By / Others

The period with Xiaomi’s injunction, appeal and Bayer’s SLP It is only fitting that I begin a Review of this eventful period with the highlights. Gopika reported on what is our first highlight, the ex-parte injunction granted against Xiaomi in a suit filed by Ericsson for alleged infringement of their SEP portfolio. Gopika points out that there are reasons why restraint from granting an injunction in this matter would have perhaps been a better course. Xiaomi had also appealed the […]

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David Turns Goliath? Looking at Micromax’s injunction against OnePlus

/ By / Copyright, Trademark

In the latest twist to the smartphone wars, Micromax received an order (not ex-parte this time thankfully) in its favour restraining OnePlus from selling devices in India with the CyanogenMod Core Operating System and the CyanogenMod TM. The Android Operating System (“OS”) is customisable, so companies like Cyanogen make modifications to the stock Android OS and distribute it under their names and Trademarks. CyanogenMod OS is one such modification that Cyanogen had initially by means of a non-exclusive license, licensed

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The Delhi High Court Takes a Knife to the Anti-Dissection Rule

/ By / Trademark

M/s South India Beverages Pvt. Ltd. v. General Mills Marketing Inc. & Anr. In a recent trademark appeal at the Delhi High Court over two allegedly similar marks ‘HAAGEN DAZS’ and D’DAAZS the Court upheld the order of the Single Judge granting an interim injunction against use of the latter mark by the appellant-defendant. Both the appellants and the respondents were engaged in the business of the sale of ice-creams and related dairy products, although admittedly in different price brackets.

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SpicyIP Tidbit: Xiaomi Appeals Injunction, Allowed to Sell Devices

/ By / Patent

In a spicy twist to the battle raging on in the Delhi High Court between Xiaomi and Ericsson, a new Division Bench order provides some respite for the former. Xiaomi had appealed the injunction that was granted against it ex-parte by a Single Judge bench on the 8th of December this year. The Division Bench orders, as can be gathered from the information available here, that Xiaomi is allowed to sell its devices in India, subject to a number of

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The BIS, Standards and Copyright

/ By / Copyright

A while ago, Swaraj had posted on a petition led by Mr. Carl Malamud over at Public.Resource.Org to make the Standards published by the Bureau of Indian Standards (“BIS”) freely available to the public. The petition was supported by Mr Sam Pitroda, Dr Sushant Sinha (of the indiankanoon.org fame), Prof Dhrubajyoti Sen, Prof T.I. Eldho, Mr Srinivas Kodali, Dr Vinton G. Cerf (yes, the architect of the internet Vinton Cerf) and Swaraj. The trouble started when Mr. Carl Malamud had

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SpicyIP Weekly Review (10th to 16th November, 2014)

/ By / Others

The week with the Dasatinib CL Controversy The week’s SpicyIP highlight of the week was Shamnad Sir’s post on the Dasatinib CL controversy. He writes about the various methods that are available to get an otherwise unaffordable drug within the reach of the masses and also brings to light a scoop that we had obtained containing a few questions that the DIPP had asked the Health Ministry, strongly indicating a restrictive interpretation of S.92. He concludes his post wondering why

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SpicyIP Tidbit: Plain Packaging Packaged in a Notification?

/ By / Trademark

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India recently issued a notification introducing a requirement that the pictorial and textual statutory warnings that are to be placed on the carton must now cover 85% of the display area of the package. The notification, that amends the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Packaging and Labelling Rules), 2008 states that the pictorial warning must cover at least 60% of the area and the textual warning 25% percent of the area

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SpicyIP Weekly Review (20th to 26th October, 2014)

/ By / Others

The Week in which the Delhi High Court addressed Patent Application Pendency The SpicyIP Highlight of the Week was Anubha’s post on the case at the Delhi High Court – Nitto Denko v. Union of India. The case was filed by Nitto in reaction to what they perceived as an inordinate delay in processing applications at the Patent Office. They argued that this delay was in complete disregard of the time schedule provided Rule 24B of the Patents Rules, 2003.

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Protecting Quasi Judicial Officers from Executive Excesses: A Patent Upliftment!

/ By / Trademark

Read the text of the judgment here. In a significant development for IP and constitutional law, the Delhi High Court ruled that the statutory discretion vested in quasi-judicial officials such as Patent Controllers and Trademark Registrars cannot be interfered with by their higher ups, such as the Controller General (CG).  But first a bit of background. Several months ago, the CG had issued an office order disallowing “substantial” amendments in trademark applications. The key part of the office order (Clause

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The DST/DBT Releases the Second Draft of its Open Access Policy

/ By / Copyright, Innovation

The Department of Science and Technology and the Department of Biotechnology (DST/DBT) together released the second draft of its Open Access Policy and has invited comments on the same. The Open Access Policy is the DST/DBT initiative aimed at trying to increase the availability of the findings of publicly funded research by encouraging these to be made open access. The manner in which the policy achieves this is by requiring every DST or DBT funded or other indirectly funded research

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