Bye, bye quia timet patent injunctions?

‘Quia timet’? Makes no sense to you? Makes no sense to me either, especially after the Supreme Court’s ruling in Patil Automation v. Rakheja Engineers. The Supreme Court recently held that mediation prior to institution of a suit is mandatory unless the suit contemplates urgent interim relief. If the plaintiff does not follow the mediation process, its plaint can be rejected. This mediation requirement was introduced in 2018 through an amendment to the Commercial Courts Act, 2015. The amendment introduced …

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Trademarks as a Barrier to Free-Speech: An Examination of the MetaBirkins Dispute

We are pleased to bring our readers a guest post by Abhijay Srekanth and Vivek Basanagoudar on interaction of trademarks with free speech. Abhijay Srekanth is an LLM candidate at the Queen Mary University of London specialising in IP, and a recent graduate of Jindal Global Law School. Vivek Basanagoudar is a fourth year law student at Jindal Global Law School. The views expressed in the piece are personal. Trademarks as a Barrier to Free-Speech: An Examination of the MetaBirkins …

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"Lets eat grandpa" "Lets eat, grandpa". Commas - they save lives

When can/not a Patent Application be Divided? Part II: Claims & Pluralities

In the first part of a two part guest post series, Amit Tailor reviewed what the Delhi High Court said on the issue of maintainability of divisional applications in Boehringer Ingelheim vs. The Controller. This second part continues where that post left off, and brings us analysis on whether or not, for the purposes of maintaining a divisional application, there must be a plurality of inventions in the claims of the parent application. When can/not a Patent Application be Divided? Part …

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pic of scrabble tiles saying divide and conquer

When can/not a Patent Application be Divided? Part I: Boehringer Ingelheim vs. The Controller

We’re pleased to bring to you a 2 part guest post by Amit Tailor on the question of when a patent application can be divided, that came up in the recent case of Boehringer Ingelheim vs. The Controller. The first slightly shorter part focuses on reviewing the judgment on this question, while the second slightly longer part carries out an analysis of the same. Amit is a post graduate in Pharmaceutical Sciences from National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER), …

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Competition law flexibilities for pharma patents? Vifor v CCI

Story so far: Recently, the Delhi High Court was tasked with examining an interesting competition and IP case. An informant (requesting confidentiality) filed a competition law complaint against Vifor International AG (Vifor) before the Competition Commission of India (CCI). Unfortunately, the facts of the complaint are not clear from the Delhi High Court decision since the complaint was filed seeking confidentiality.   Some facts can be gleaned from the arguments of both sides. It appears that Vifor holds patents for …

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Fixing Pre grants: Will the EAC suggestion to fix time limit help?

Recently, the Economic Times reported that the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC) suggested two ways to fast track the process of granting patents. First, it suggested hiring more examiners, an issue we have previously raised alarm about here and here. However, it’s the second suggestion, to limit the timeline for filing pre-grant opposition to 6 months, which has been making quite a few rounds in the media  (see for instance here and here). These suggestions were apparently …

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Internet Archive's Wayback machine (which archives pages across the internet) showing an "HTTP 301" error, and redirecting the page to a website that seems to belong to karnataka state open university

IPAB Orders – Where Art Thou? (And Here’s Our Backup Copy)

It’s now been almost a year since the introduction of the Tribunals Reforms Act, 2021, which put an official end to India’s Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB), moving its jurisdiction back to the High Courts. There have been a few questions lingering from this transfer though. For instance, as pointed out in the comments on this post – Is there clarity on territorial jurisdiction for various High Courts for pending and new cases that would’ve gone to IPAB? What exactly …

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The Extent of Claim Amendment Allowed in a Patent Application: Part 2

Continuing on from the previous blogpost, we bring you part 2 of Amit Tailor’s two part series on the recent case Nippon A&L vs The Controller of Patents, which looked into questions of how and to what extent a claim in a patent application can be amended under the Patents Act. In the first part, Amit introduced the issue and argues that the court’s reliance on the European Technical Board of Appeal’s Konica case is questionable. In this second part, …

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"Amendment"

The Extent of Claim Amendment Allowed in a Patent Application: Part 1

We’re pleased to bring to our readers a 2 part post by Amit Tailor on the recent case Nippon A&L vs The Controller of Patents, which looked into questions of how and to what extent a claim in a patent application can be amended under the Patents Act. In the first part, Amit introduces the issue and argues that the court’s reliance on the European Technical Board of Appeal’s Konica case is questionable. In the second part, Amit argues that …

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WIPO members approve two diplomatic conferences on designs and genetic resources/TK protection

The WIPO General Assembly, on July 21, 2022, approved to move to diplomatic conferences for two proposed international agreements –  one, covering protection of designs and the other, on intellectual property (IP), genetic resources and traditional knowledge (TK) associated with genetic resources. Diplomatic conferences are negotiating rounds which can result in the adoption of multilateral treaties. WIPO members have approved convening of diplomatic conferences for the two proposed treaties no later than 2024. Proposed Design Law Treaty The proposed Design …

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