Category Archives: Competition Law

In a decision sure to have important implications for antitrust, copyright law, digital archiving and class action issues, a federal district court in New York rejected the settlement that Google had reached with layers of publishing houses and authors themselves, to digitise books to create a universal library of digital content. After a significant lull in the updates on the Google Book Settlement, the long-awaited decision has finally come through, putting to rest the $125 million deal, in its current…

Competition Law Innovation

Guest Post: Innovation for the 21st Century

by Shamnad Basheer December 13, 2009

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We are very honoured to bring you a guest post from Professor Michael Carrier, a renowned thought leader in IP and competition policy. His post titled “Fostering Innovation by Fixing US Law” captures the central arguments he makes in a very engaging book titled “Innovation for the 21st Century: Harnessing the Power of Intellectual Property and Antitrust Law“. Given that India is soon going to face very challenging jurisprudential issues around the application of competition law to intellectual property, Michael’s…

Competition Law Innovation

Intellectual Property Rights and Competition Law: Friends or Foes?

by Mihir Naniwadekar September 1, 2009

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In several previous posts, we have debated on aspects of the interaction of IP with competition law. These issues are all the more important in Indian intellectual property now, with the coming into force of several provisions of the Competition Act, 2002. The possibility of tensions between IP and competition law seems to have been present in the mind of the legislature, when it made some IP-specific exceptions in Section 3(5) of the Act. Among the important questions which are…

Competition Law

Guest Post: Hanging on the Telephone: Apple’s App Store fiasco and what the FCC is doing about it

by Prashant Reddy August 14, 2009

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SpicyIP is pleased to bring to you a guest post by Chaitanya Ramchandran, a good friend of mine who has very recently graduated from the National Law School of India University, Bangalore. During his stint at law school Chaitanya was editor in chief of NLSIU’s flagship tech law journal – Indian Journal of Law & Technology whose archives can be accessed here. His post focuses on the competition law issues arising out of Apple’s latest policies regarding the applications that…

Competition Law

The Competition Commission: Separation of Power troubles again?

by Mihir Naniwadekar August 9, 2009

1 Comment

Earlier on this blog, a series of posts had covered some of the IP-related issues in the Competition Act, 2002. Now, with several of the Acts provisions in force, I intend to look at some aspects of the Act in detail. Particularly, I intend to focus on the following areas; though with the help of our readers’ comments, I hope that the discussion shall cover other related areas too: 1. The Competition Commission 2. Exclusive agreements: When are they anti-competitive?…

Competition Law Patent

Part I: European Commission’s Competition Inquiry into the Pharmaceutical Sector

by Prakruthi Gowda July 20, 2009

(KEI) Cracking Open Anti-competitive Practices in the Developing World: Complaints, Amendments and Waivers.

by Kruttika Vijay July 10, 2008

5 Comments

In Feb 2007 Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) had brought to the notice of the US Federal Trade Commission the practices of Gilead Sciences Inc. with respect to certain patented drugs used in the treatment of HIV and AIDS of Gilead that they believed was wholly anticompetitive. As Shamnad recently posted, this is with respect to a same drug that is facing pre-grant opposition in India from a Brazillian organisation. The study of these documents made for very interesting reading, one…

Competition Law Patent

The Competition Act, Patents and Over Hyped Drugs – Part III

by Mrinalini Kochupillai February 7, 2008

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Lets start today with an overview of some of the sections of the Competition Act that might have a bearing on any patent related competition issues: Chapter II of the Act proscribes Anti Competitive agreements including tie-in arrangements, exclusive supply agreements, exclusive distribution agreements, refusals to deal and resale price maintenance. Sub-section (5) of section 3 however provides (inter alia) that the section shall not be read to restrict the “right of any person to restrain any infringement of, or…

Competition Law Patent