Category Archives: Plant Variety Protection

[Co-authored/compiled with Praharsh Gour] Earlier this week, Praharsh blogged about the IPAB finally being scrapped through an ordinance, with its powers / duties transferred to High Courts and Commercial courts (for copyright matters). Long time readers may recall that Prof Shamnad Basheer, after pointing out various issues with it, had first started asking for the IPAB to be shut down 11 years ago, in this post titled “Pondering the legal competence of the IPAB”. Note the following lines – more…

Breaking: President Promulgates Tribunal Reforms (Rationalisation and Conditions of Service) Ordinance 2021

by Praharsh Gour April 5, 2021

1 Comment

IPAB has been in the eye of the storm since its inception. While there are ardent believers of the institution (See here and here), there are equally strong arguments by the ones against it (few of them advanced by the former Chairperson of the institution itself!) (See here here and here). A few months ago, the Executive seemingly laid the debate to rest by introducing the Tribunal Reforms (Rationalisation and Conditions of Service) Bill 2021, proposing to scrap IPAB. However,…

Justice Prabha Sridevan on Govt’s Proposal to Shut Down IPAB and the Way Forward

by SpicyIP February 18, 2021

6 Comments

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…

Justice Manmohan Singh Holds Hearings at IPAB Despite Supreme Court Ruling

by Praharsh Gour February 16, 2021

2 Comments

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…

Breaking: Finance Minister Proposes a Draft Bill in Lok Sabha to Shut Down IPAB

by Praharsh Gour February 13, 2021

5 Comments

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…

Breaking: Supreme Court Dismisses Application Seeking Extension of Justice Manmohan Singh as IPAB Chairperson

by Praharsh Gour February 13, 2021

2 Comments

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….

The Legality of the Appointment of the 5 Technical Members to the IPAB

by SpicyIP December 28, 2020

3 Comments

Prashant Reddy, one of our most prolific bloggers, is back with a guest post, questioning the legality of the appointment of the 5 Technical Members made to the IPAB earlier this year. The Legality of the Appointment of the 5 Technical Members to the IPAB Prashant Reddy Continuing from Praharsh’s earlier post on the Supreme Court’s judgment on the legality of the Tribunal Rules, 2020, I would like to briefly comment on the legality of the appointments of the 5…

Supreme Court Revisits Tribunal Culture (Yet Again): Upholds Validity of 2020 Rules with Conditions

by Praharsh Gour December 25, 2020

11 Comments

Adding to an existing trail of decisions on administration of the tribunals, the Supreme Court passed a detailed judgement in Madras High Court Bar Association v. Union of India last month, wherein it upheld the constitutional validity of the Tribunal, Appellate Tribunal and other Authorities (Qualifications, Experience and other Conditions of Service of Members) Rules, 2020 (or Tribunal Rules 2020). Among other things, the decision is crucial for its observation on appointment of the Chairpersons, Vice-Chairperson and Technical Members to…

A New IPAB Chairperson? Maybe, Maybe Not

by SpicyIP August 23, 2020

2 Comments

We’re pleased to bring you a guest post by Praharsh Gour, highlighting the recent Call for Applications put out for the post of the IPAB Chairperson, along with AIPPI’s application for extending the incumbent Chairperson’s tenure yet again. Praharsh is a graduate from Hidayatullah National Law University, Raipur and is presently an LL.M. candidate at the Faculty of Legal Studies, South Asian University, New Delhi. He’s also co-authored two posts on the blog previously, which can be viewed here and…

A Petition to Shutdown the IPAB and Shift Its Functions to High Courts and Commercial Courts

by Prashant Reddy May 7, 2020

2 Comments

A few weeks ago we had an interesting series of posts on SpicyIP, debating the role of the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB) and whether it should continue to exist. Along with our former blogger Rahul Bajaj, who is currently a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, I have drafted the petition below requesting the government to consider a proposal to scrap the IPAB and transfer its functions back to commercial courts and High Courts. We intend to send it to the…

Adyasha Samal { Thank you for bringing out that point, sir. Indeed, implementing a mandatory registration system would unfairly deprive Indian authors of the rights that foreign authors would continue to... }
Jagdish Sagar { Under Article 5(2) of the Berne Convention, copyright protection in works originating in other member countries of the Berne Union cannot be subject to any formalities. If India... }
Praharsh Gour { Hey Megha, Thank you for your comments and pointers. The scenario suggested by you are exactly the same thing we have raised concern about. Seemingly the whole business... }
Megha Banerjee { The only reason that government (ICMR) does not allow other pvt. Drug manufacturing companies to manufacture may be restrictions on ICMR and other other govt. Agencies to create... }
Akshat Agrawal { Hi Adarsh. Thank you. Continuing the conversation. Okay so I think step 1 is important. Copyright exists- but on what does copyright exist? The court has many times... }

De-Coding Indian Intellectual Property Law

Category Archives: Plant Variety Protection

The Compilation of the Decade of SpicyIP Posts on IPAB

Breaking: President Promulgates Tribunal Reforms (Rationalisation and Conditions of Service) Ordinance 2021

Justice Prabha Sridevan on Govt’s Proposal to Shut Down IPAB and the Way Forward

Justice Manmohan Singh Holds Hearings at IPAB Despite Supreme Court Ruling

Breaking: Finance Minister Proposes a Draft Bill in Lok Sabha to Shut Down IPAB

Breaking: Supreme Court Dismisses Application Seeking Extension of Justice Manmohan Singh as IPAB Chairperson

The Legality of the Appointment of the 5 Technical Members to the IPAB

Supreme Court Revisits Tribunal Culture (Yet Again): Upholds Validity of 2020 Rules with Conditions

A New IPAB Chairperson? Maybe, Maybe Not

A Petition to Shutdown the IPAB and Shift Its Functions to High Courts and Commercial Courts