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.

A Very Belated SpicyIP Weekly Review (6th to 12th October, 2014)

/ By / Others

The Week with the NBER Paper Situation This week saw the emergence of a spicy controversy surrounding an NBER working paper which concluded that Indian firms differentiate drug quality based on destination of consumption, to the detriment of African countries. The Indian government had a shocking response to this working paper – they decided to sue for defamation. We carried a set of posts to cover this whirlwind situation, one on the conclusions in the paper itself, followed up by …

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T-Series Faces the Music on its Minimum Commitment Charges

/ By / Competition Law, Copyright

The CCI in a recent decision ruled that Minimum Commitment (“MC”) charges imposed by T-Series on Radio Stations were unfair and discriminatory and imposed a penalty of Rs 28.3 million on T-Series. These MC charges were charges equivalent to fixed number of radio hours that stations had to pay T-Series irrespective of whether or not they played their music. The rationale that T-Series had advanced before the commission was that radio stations had to pay charges for a fixed number …

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The US-India Trade Policy Forum to Affect IP Policy Decisions!

/ By / Innovation

With all the talk that has been done in the past of our IP laws, seemingly favouring innovation and not heeding to pressure from the developed world to enforce a more monopoly centric agenda, we have recently taken a huge leap backwards. A joint statement released by the Indian and the US governments pointed towards increased “co-operation” between the two governments in the realm of IP, but used a very troubling idea. I quote from the section “Economic Growth” (the …

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The DU Photocopying Case Thus Far

/ By / Copyright

Gautam Bhatia, who blogs over at the Indian Constitutional Law Philosophy blog recently wrote an interesting piece for the Outlook where he talks about a case that we have covered ever so passionately on the blog – The Delhi University Photocopying case. In this post I want to try and reflect on the happenings of the case, and perhaps raise some questions of my own. (Long post to follow) For the uninitiated, this was a suit brought by a consortium …

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SpicyIP Weekly Review (15th to 21st September, 2014)

/ By / Others

We started quite a busy week off with a post by Gopika on the Diageo Brands v. Khoday Distilleries case. Khoday was allegedly applying for the registration of and utilising marks that were deceptively similar to Diageo’s marks. The latter therefore sought an injunction on both of these practices. In her analysis she points out that, “Courts are loath to grant injunction restraining parties from applying for registration and getting possibly infringing marks registered….However, [an] injunction can be obtained restraining …

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The Delhi HC rules on the Address of Service & Territorial Jurisdiction of High Courts

/ By / Trademark

Jenson and Nicholson (I) Ltd v. The Joint Registrar of Trademarks and Anr. Read the decision here. Facts of the Case: The petitioners in this case, who were in the business of making paints and varnishes had filed for the registration of a mark ‘Umbrella Synthetic Enamel’ in the year 1998 for its enamel paints. The mark was advertised and there was an objection filed to its registration by another company. The Registrar sent a notice to the petitioners stating …

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SpicyIP Tidbit: Infrastructure and Transparency get a boost at the IP Office

/ By / Others, Patent

Mr Amitabh Kant, Secretary, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, recently inaugurated a new building that is to be used by the Intellectual Property Office. Built at a cost of nearly Rs. 30 crore, the building is said to be equipped to deal with the operations of the Patent Office as an International Searching Authority (ISA) and International Preliminary Examining Authority (IPEA) under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), Business Standard reports. A new payment gateway …

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Analysing parts of the CCI’s spare parts order

/ By / Competition Law, Copyright, Design, Patent

A group of automobile manufacturers were recently fined a total sum of Rs. 25.45 billion for the practices that they adopted in the sale of their spare parts (read the 215 page order of the Commission here). The worst affected in the group was Tata Motors with a penalty of about Rs. 13.4 billion with Maruti Suzuki coming in next with a penalty of Rs. 4 billion. The grievance of the informant was that the spare parts for the cars …

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SpicyIP Weekly Review (August 18 – 24, 2014)

/ By / Others

In case you missed us the past week, here’s a roundup of all the stories that we carried on the blog over the past week. We started the week off with Anubha’s post on the case of Dandi Salt v. Union of India. She analyses this decision of J. Vibhu Bakhru of the Delhi High Court which concludes that the Registrar of Copyrights does not have the power to adjudicate upon the merits of an application preferred by the Copyright …

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The Supreme Court on Section 35 of the TradeMarks Act

/ By / Trademark

The Supreme Court recently had the opportunity to adjudicate upon a case related to S.35 of the Trademarks Act. The case was between two separate firms consisting of members from the same family, sharing the same surname – ‘Rakyan’. These firms were each engaged in the business of selling jewellery and precious stones which was also a family business and there were other family firms that were also involved in the same business. The parties’ shops were also “abutting” each …

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