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…
Topical Highlight Justice Prabha Sridevan on Govt’s Proposal to Shut Down IPAB and the Way Forward In this guest post, Justice (Retd.) Prabha Sridevan notes that the Government’s proposal to scrap the IPAB is a welcome change. She argues that the functioning of the IPAB makes the two ostensible reasons for tribunalisation unsustainable: expert insight and speedy justice. She argues that regular courts are also more than capable of eliciting expert opinions, citing multiple cases where this has been done. Further,…
We’re pleased to bring to you a guest post by Justice (Retd.) Prabha Sridevan on the recent Bill moved by the Government in the Parliament proposing to shut down IPAB and the way forward. Justice Sridevan needs no introduction – she served as a judge of the Madras High Court from 2000 to 2010 and as the Chairperson of the IPAB from 2011 to 2013 and her stint as both resulted in a number of significant IP developments, which we…
Heard it through the grapevine and saw in the causelist that Retd. Justice Manmohan Singh is still holding hearings in the IPAB and passing orders. Just a couple of days ago we reported that the application for Justice Singh’s extension as the IPAB Chairperson was rejected by the Supreme Court. The Court in its judgement (pdf) expressly noted that the tenure of the incumbent Chairperson ended on 21.09.2019 and further rejected the notion that the incumbent must remain as the…
We have received a lead from one of our readers on an issue regarding the filing of working statements (Form 27) as per the amendments made to Patent Rules, 2003 in October last year. The Patent Rules, 2003 require patentees as well as patent licensees to file a statement disclosing information regarding the extent to which the patented invention has been worked in India on a commercial scale. The format for this statement is Form 27, provided in the Second…
Topical Highlight Breaking: Supreme Court Dismisses Application Seeking Extension of Justice Manmohan Singh as IPAB Chairperson Praharsh informed our readers that this week the Supreme Court dismissed the AIPPI application seeking another extension to the tenure of the incumbent IPAB Chairperson. The application for extension was a part of a writ petition which was disposed of by the court after tagging it to Madras High Court Bar Association decision. Praharsh highlights the issues taken up by the court – the laws regarding…
Just hours ago we broke the story about the Supreme Court judgement (pdf) dismissing the application seeking extension of the incumbent IPAB Chairperson and now we are in knowledge of an immensely interesting Draft Bill (pdf) introduced in the Lok Sabha which proposes to shut IPAB for good! The Bill was introduced the day before yesterday (11.02.2021) by the Union Finance Minister Ms. Nirmala Sitharaman, bearing the title “The Tribunals Reforms (Rationalisation And Conditions Of Service) Bill, 2021”. While seeking…
Hitting the (seemingly) final nail and ending the trail of extension requests, the Supreme Court via its order yesterday (12/02/2021 (pdf) ) dismissed the application seeking another extension to the tenure of the incumbent IPAB Chairperson. The application for extension was filed by the AIPPI (aka the International Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property) and was a part of a writ petition which was disposed of by the court after tagging it to Madras High Court Bar Association decision….
Thematic Highlight An Alternative to Delhi HC’s Approach on Confidentiality Clubs in InterDigital-Xiaomi SEP Dispute In this guest post, Abhilasha analyses the recent Delhi High Court decision on confidentiality clubs in InterDigital v. Xiaomi. She first lays down the background in which confidentiality clubs have originated in the Indian IP litigation. She particularly emphasises on the balancing of interests carried out by Delhi High Court in the Vestergaard judgment while creating a confidentiality club. She then analyses the decision in…
We’re pleased to bring to you a guest post by Abhilasha Nautiyal, analysing the recent Delhi High Court decision on confidentiality clubs in InterDigital v. Xiaomi (also discussed by Nikhil and Anupriya earlier here, here and here) and proposing an alternative to it. Abhilasha is an attorney at Ira Law, a firm that she co-founded with other colleagues. Prior to this, she was a partner at an IP law firm. She graduated from the Army Institute of Law and then…