The 2015 Global Congress on IP and the Public Interest kicked off with its inaugural plenary session, on 14th December, 2015. With over 400 registered participants, ranging from established academics to activists to students gathered in the auditorium in National Law University, Delhi, Phet Sayo, a Senior Fellow at IDRC and a panelist at the session rightly observed that if a bomb were to go off at this venue, “there goes IP activism”.  The inaugural  session began with Dr. Ranbir

This post by Job Michael Mathew first appeared on the Global Congress 2015 Blog. The fifth discussion in our pre-GCIP discussion series is with Jayashree Watal.[1] Profile: Jayashree Watal has been Counsellor in the Intellectual Property Division of the World Trade Organization since February 2001. She worked in the Ministry of Commerce of the Government of India as Director, Trade Policy Division, New Delhi (1995–1998). She represented India at a crucial stage in the Uruguay Round TRIPS negotiations from 1989–1990.

Earlier this year, a team of four Indian IP enthusiasts led by Vijaykumar Shivpuje, launched the first version of an interesting Android application titled ‘VPATAPP’. VPATAPP is a free resource which provides a quick toolkit for various categorised sources aimed at IPR practitioners, specifically patent lawyers, across the globe. The app has just been upgraded to its second version on 13th December, adding crucial features. VPATAPP is a repository of patent-related links and information from around the world, including, as

This post by Job Michael Mathew first appeared on the Global Congress 2015 Blog. The next discussion in our pre-GCIP discussion series is with Prof. Shamnad Basheer.[1] Profile: Shamnad Basheer is the founder of SpicyIP, India’s premier blog on IP and innovation law and policy. Basheer was the first Ministry of Human Resource Development Chaired Professor of Intellectual Property Law at the National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata, and a Frank H. Marks Visiting Associate Professor of Intellectual Property Law at the George Washington