A Response to the Alternate Interpretation on Permissibility of Sub-licensing under Indian Trademark Law

/ By / Trademark

Last week, Kapil had written a guest post giving an alternate interpretation to the arguments in my post on the impermissibility of sub-licensing arrangements under the Trade Marks Act, 1999 (‘the TM Act’). The main counter points by Kapil against my argument that the TM Act does not permit sub-licensing, as I understand, are listed below: The TM Act does not explicitly restrict the provision of sub-licensing clauses in an agreement between a proprietor and a user. Section 2(1)(r)(i) read […]

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SpicyIP Weekly Review (April 27 – May 3)

/ By / Others

(This post has been authored by our intern, Bhavik Shukla, a 5th year student at NLIU, Bhopal) Topical Highlight Divij covered the legal aspects surrounding digital access to libraries with reference to the COVID-19 lockdown. He notes that the legality of digital book-lending efforts have posed unresolved challenges to the copyright law in India. He notes that Indian copyright law incorporates the first sale doctrine, but the same has not been extended to the digital medium due to the ease

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US Supreme Court’s Decision on Copyrightability of Annotations to Official Code of Georgia: Can It Inspire the Access to Law Movement in India?

/ By / Copyright

We are delighted to bring to our readers an insightful post by Dr. Arul George Scaria on the US Supreme Court’s recent decision in Georgia et al., v. Public.Resource.Org holding that annotations to the official code of Georgia are not copyrightable. In this post, he makes a case for the adoption of the government edicts doctrine by Indian courts to foster greater ‘access to law’ in India. Dr. Scaria is an Associate Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Centre

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Special 301

USTR Special 301 Review (2020) Submissions – Continued

/ By / Drug Regulation, Patent

As readers may know, the Special 301 Review is an effort by the US Trade Representative (USTR) to identify countries whose IP regimes are not conducive to US persons’ IP interests, with the stated goal of increasing bilateral attention on ‘problem areas’. This has most frequently been done through the threat of unilateral sanctions (see our posts on earlier editions of the Special 301 review here). This year’s report has come out as well – with India once again being

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Is Sub-Licensing of Trademarks Permitted under Indian Law? : An Alternate Interpretation

/ By / Trademark

We’re pleased to bring to you a guest post by Kapil Wadhwa on the issue of permissibility of sub-licensing of trademarks in India. Last week, Latha had discussed this issue on the blog, arguing that sub-licensing is not permitted under Trade Marks Act. In this post, Kapil provides a different interpretation of the statutory provisions and argues that the Indian law does permit sub-licensing of trademarks. Kapil is an intellectual property law practitioner based out of New Delhi and a

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The Legality of Digital Libraries in a Lockdown

/ By / Copyright, COVID-19

Quarantine and lockdown in the midst of the CoViD-19 pandemic has left entire populations without physical access to schools, colleges and public libraries. Even more than before, this has shone a spotlight on the digital access to cultural and educational resources. Taking a cue from Namratha’s insightful post on the responses of copyright law in such a situation, in this post I explore the many legal contentions around the ‘digital’ access to libraries, particularly in the present moment. This is

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SpicyIP Weekly Review (April 20 – 26)

/ By / Others

(This post has been authored by our intern, Bhavik Shukla, a 5th year student at NLIU, Bhopal) Topical Highlight Namratha wrote about Cancer Patients Aid Association’s (‘CPAA’) call for revocation of Gilead’s Remdesivir, a drug being tested as a probable cure for COVID-19. She states that Remdesivir was granted a patent in India in February 2020, and that it has been touted as ‘essential’ for treatment of COVID-19 patients suffering from other serious health conditions simultaneously. She further notes that

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Cross-Border Data Flows in WTO Law: Moving Towards an Open, Secure and Privacy-Compliant Data Governance Framework

/ By / Others, Privacy

We have for our readers today an invited guest post from Neha Mishra, currently a post-doctoral fellow at the Centre for International Law, National University of Singapore. Neha earned her BA.LLB degree from NLS Bangalore several years ago (where we were classmates) after which she practised law briefly in London and India. She then went on to collect degrees in law and public policy from the London School of Economics, National University of Singapore and finally a PhD from Melbourne

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Screening of Movies in Educational Settings: Copyright Infringement or Fair Use?

/ By / Copyright

Every year, April 26th is celebrated as World IP Day. WIPO’s website states that the aim of the celebration is to “learn about the role that IP rights play in encouraging innovation and creativity”. A less remembered and celebrated fact though is how fair use provisions play an equal, if not larger role, in fostering creativity and innovation. Such a skewed view often results in people being less aware/prevented from availing the benefits of fair use provisions. I was recently

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Govt Urged to Revoke Patent for Gilead’s Potential Anti-COVID19 Drug Remdesivir

/ By / COVID-19, Patent

Recently, the Cancer Patients Aid Association (CPAA) wrote to the Health Ministry and the Pharma Ministry urging them to revoke the Indian patent granted to Gilead’s Remdesivir, an anti-viral drug that is being tested as a potential cure for COVID-19.  With Remdesivir being granted a patent as recently as February 2020, CPAA has sought its revocation immediately under Section 66 of the Patents Act, 1970 on the ground of public interest and Section 64 of the Act on the ground

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