Guest Post: Airtel pays penalty for indiscriminate blocking – ISPs stuck between a rock and a hard place?

/ By / Copyright

Adithya Reddy, a practising advocate before the Madras High Court, has sent us this excellent post on the various issues that arise out of the decision of a court to impose a penalty on Airtel for blocking access to file-sharing websites as a result of the ‘John Doe’ order granted by the Madras High Court to the producers of the film ‘3’. This post is a must read for all those of you who are interested in the taking the […]

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July 2012: Controller’s decisions at the IPO

/ By / Uncategorized

July was yet another sizzling month (third in a row) at the Controller’s offices!  Out of 138 decisions listed, 56 were granted, 23 refused and no file uploaded for the remainder.   One issue that I must highlight is that the Chennai patent office uploads the decisions in a haphazard manner.  There is no problem with the decision as such, but it may create problem in data retrieval at a later stage.  The decisions are first printed, then signed, then

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Traditional medicines, clinical trials and re-entry of data exclusivity?

/ By / Uncategorized

In response to consistent pressure from external agencies to impose some kind of quality control on “traditional Indian herbal” medicines,  India may very soon make it mandatory for traditional medicines to undergo clinical trials   before they hit the market.  However the mandatory trials may be made applicable only for new patented drugs and not for ancient formulations.  See TOI report. There are two reasons why clinical testing should be done at least on the newer patented drugs based on

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Patenting Pegasus: From Flights of Fancy to Firmer Legal Moorings?

/ By / Patent

By most accounts, India’s specialised IP tribunal, the IPAB (Intellectual Property Appellate Body) has undergone a significant face lift. From being seen as a lethargic and all too incompetent body, subject to flights of legal fancy and with a penchant for meticulously reproducing counsel submissions, sans any legal analysis of their own, many practitioners and IP stakeholders now swear by the proficiency of the IPAB. We’ll bring some you data soon to back up this common perception that after the

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New Prize dwarfs Nobel prize money; Indian awarded

/ By / Innovation

Ashoke Sen A new annual prize called The Fundamental Physics Prize has been instituted by Russian internet mogul Yuri Milner and it’s prize money of $3 million each, more than doubles the Nobel Prize which is currently $1.2 million, which is usually shared by 2-3 people. Mr Milner personally selected this year’s winners but winners from next year onwards will be selected by the previous year’s winners. The prize was awarded to 9 people this year and for a change an

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Division Bench of Delhi High Court settles the law on interpretation of IPR (Imported Goods) Enforcement Rules, 2007

/ By / Uncategorized

Image from here In an interesting co-incidence, the Delhi High Court delivered two judgments on an identical point of law on the same day – 13th July, 2012. The first judgment by Justice Manmohan Singh was covered by us over here and here. (The first ex-parte order is available over here) That judgment which in my opinion was highly erroneous, had interpreted the IPR (Imported Goods) Enforcement Rules, 2007 in a manner which concluded that the Customs Department could apply

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From the Archives: Official documents from the 1999 Indo-American Pharmaceutical Patents trade dispute before the WTO

/ By / Patent

Image from here Khomba Singh of the ET had carried this interesting report on 3rd August, 2012 hinting at the possibility of the European Union (E.U.) installing ‘non-tariff’ barriers to punish Indian generics for blatantly violating the patents of foreign innovator companies in India. The measures proposed so far seemed to be aimed at using India’s own impotent drug regulatory bureaucracy to slow down Indian generic drug exports to the E.U. Honestly, I’m not surprised that E.U. is considering something

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G.I. Registry dismisses plea against G.I. tag for ‘Tirupati Laddu’; imposes costs of Rs. 10,000 on Praveen Raj

/ By / Uncategorized

Image from here. Although we are yet to see a copy of the final order, we have been informed that the Geographical Indications Registry dismissed, on July 30th 2012, the rectification petition filed by Praveen Raj against the registration of ‘Tirupati Laddu’ as a geographical indication. Some of the newspapers have carried reported the same over here and here.  Honestly, I’m not surprised that the G.I. Registry has dismissed the petition and imposed costs of Rs. 10,000 on Praveen Raj.

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SpicyIP Tidbit: ToI on “U.S. doublespeak on patent waiver”

/ By / Patent

On the 27th of July, both the Times of India and the ET carried a news report titled “U.S. doublespeak on patent waiver”. The report alleges hypocrisy on the part of the U.S. in objecting to India’s decision to grant a CL for Bayer’s patent over Nexavar since the U.S. itself has recently authorized the import of cancer drugs from India in a bid to meet a critical shortage of cancer drugs in the USA. The opening line of the

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Stalemate over WIPO Treaty on Copyright Exceptions for Persons with Print Disabilities

/ By / Others

In what comes as a major setback to India, home to nearly 50% of the world’s blind population, the 24th Session of the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) concluded on July 25, 2012 in Geneva without making any significant progress on WIPO’s maiden treaty recognizing the rights of the disabled. The proposed treaty seeks to impose an obligation on member nations to create exceptions and limitations in their domestic copyright regime to enable conversion of books

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