Category Archives: Innovation

COVID-19 Data Exclusivity Drug Regulation Innovation Overlaps in IP Trade Secret

Earning Royalties off Covaxin While Demanding IP Waiver at the WTO: Saviour on the Streets, Hypocrite in the Sheets

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A frontline worker setting fire to funeral pyres at a cremation site.

As news broke out on May 3, 20201 regarding the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) earning royalties out of every dose of Covaxin sold, many were quick to chide the government for embarrassing itself by profiting off vaccines sold in its own country while seeking a waiver of all IPRs on patents, copyright, industrial design and undisclosed information pertaining to vaccines for Covid-19 (covered previously on the blog here, here and here) at the WTO. In this post, I focus on the differential…


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COVID-19 Innovation Patent

Special 301 Report 2021: US’s Great U-turn on Compulsory Licensing

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Lost in the shadow of the US’s historic change of position on Waiver of IP rights in Covid-19 vaccines, the USTR’s latest Annual Special 301 Report has its own share of surprises to offer. The Report, as is known, is a much criticized annual exercise in ‘calling out’ countries for adopting IP policies that the US does not approve of – regardless of the fact that they’re made by sovereign nations to suit their own local realities. India, which enjoys…


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Copyright Drug Regulation Innovation Patent Privacy Trademark

SpicyIP Weekly Review (April 19 – 25)

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Topical Highlight Compulsory License for Covid Drugs on the Table, Says Delhi High Court In this post, Swaraj discusses the recent Delhi High Court order in the case of Rakesh Malhotra v. Govt of National Capital Territory of India and Others, in light of the worsening pandemic situation in India. The Court hauled up the government on various issues regarding the response to the pandemic so far, concerning oxygen use, ramping up of testing facilities, shortage of drugs and black…


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Copyright Innovation Patent Trademark

SpicyIP Weekly Review (April 5 – 11)

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Topical Highlights SCOTUS Decision in Google v. Oracle: Distorting ‘Fair Use’ but the Scathing (and Logical) Dissent is the One Saving Grace In Part I, Adarsh summarizes the recent SCOTUS ruling on Google’s copying of roughly 11,500 lines of code relating to 37 software packages forming part of Sun Java API, owned by Oracle. The court renders no finding on copyrightability and has restricted itself to the question of fair use by undertaking the four-factor analysis. On ‘Nature of the…


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Copyright Drug Regulation Innovation Patent Trademark

SpicyIP Weekly Review (March 29 – April 4)

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Topical Highlight Intellectual Property Rights in Covaxin – Part 2 (IP Ownership in Publicly Funded Research) In Part II of this post, Anupriya and Swaraj analyse the broader issue of IP ownership in outcomes of publicly funded research. They note that the government’s retention of IPR in Covaxin and the novel mRNA vaccine in the pipeline, would enable it to be in a position to share them with the rest of the developing world. They examine the patchwork of rules,…


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COVID-19 Data Exclusivity Drug Regulation Innovation Patent Trade Secret

Intellectual Property Rights in Covaxin – Part 3 (IP Rights over Clinical Drug Trials (CT) Data)

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In Part I of this post, Anik and I argued that the government should waive the IPR in Covaxin in order to ensure that the vaccine can be rapidly accessed by the public. In Part II of this post, Swaraj and I explored the broader issue of IP ownership in outcomes of publicly funded research. In Part III, I analyse the opacity surrounding the clinical trial data generated during the Covaxin trial, which has not been publicly shared on grounds…


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Innovation Others

Delhi HC Looks Into Access And Innovation Questions On Rare Diseases

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Through a series of directions issued in an order on 23rd March, Justice Prathiba M. Singh of the Delhi High Court may have finally pushed into action what the Central Government has been sitting on for years with regards to patients suffering from ‘rare diseases’. The current order related to a batch of petitions that involved 12 children with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD), 2 children with Hunter Syndrome, and 1 adult with Hippel-Linau Syndrome, and the declared inability of the…


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Copyright Innovation

Of Geospatial Data Deregulation, Intellectual Property and Personal Data Protection

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  On 15th February, the Department of Science and Technology released a new set of guidelines liberalising India’s Mapping and Geospatial Data regime by removing the existing multi-layered licensing procedures applicable on private entities. In light of these guidelines, I will discuss how maps and geospatial data can be protected as intellectual property, as well as the possible interplay between IP concerns and the personal data protection regime. The New Guidelines Historically, India has maintained a strong regulatory mechanism over mapping and geospatial…


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Copyright Geographical Indication Innovation Others Patent Publication Trademark

SpicyIP Weekly Review (February 22 – 28)

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Thematic Highlight A Draft “Open” IP Syllabus In this post, Swaraj shared the first draft version of an ‘Open’ IP Syllabus that he along with a small team of researchers has worked on in the last few months. The syllabus is aimed to contain materials that are legally and publicly available free of cost and outside of paywalls, touching upon diverse themes concerning intellectual property law. While the completion of the entire syllabus is expected to take some time, this…


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Copyright Geographical Indication Innovation Others Patent Publication Trademark

A Draft “Open” IP Syllabus

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Image showing various 'Open' related logos, with text "IP Textbooks. It's always Open Access O'Clock. Download and Enjoy"

Despite the plethora of materials online, any student, researcher or professor would know that access to scholarly information is a lot more difficult than what it should be. Most of the time, if you’re serious about research, the ‘research’ journey is more about how many paywalls you can climb (legally or not so legally), as much as it is about how good the material you can find is. To get around this, many folks rely on plug-ins like UnPayWall and…


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