Taking IP on a spin – round 2

/ By / Innovation, Patent

This is the second post of a two part series where I am looking into the manner in which certain industry lobbies have worked towards creating a certain perception/narrative of IP in which maximalist IP policies are hailed as the best and only way forward. In part 1, I discussed the heavy industry influence in the creation of the TRIPS agreement as well as the intellectually dishonest methods in which IP maximalist policies were justified. Continuing from where I left […]

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Spicyip Tidbit: The 2015 Rankings for Programs in IP and Tech Law in the US are Out!

/ By / Others

As LLM admission responses start to roll out, Hal Wegner brings our attention to something IP focused LLM applicants may be interested in. The 2015 U.S. News rankings for IP programs in U.S. universities are out and there are some big moves on the ranking table – both up and down. Stanford University’s IP program moves to the top of the list while Berkley drops down to second. The significant movers are DePaul, Fordham, Suffolk, Penn and UCLA, each university

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Of Deceptive Similarity, Vacating of Injunctions and Country Liquor

/ By / Copyright, Trademark

H v. H High Court of Bombay Text of the judgement can be found here The Bombay High Court recently refused to vacate an injunction granted to a country liquor distillery in a trademark and copyright dispute against another distiller for alleged infringement and passing off. In doing so, the court relied on Cadila to examine the similarities between the two labels. The court also observed that the appellate court was merely to examine whether the discretion of the lower

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SpicyIP Tidbit: India 2nd Largest User of PCT Among Developing Countries

/ By / Others, Patent

A press release by WIPO on 13th March, 2014 reveals that 2013 saw new records being broken when more than 200,000 international patent applications were filed in a single year, for the first time. Records were also broken in international trademark and industrial design filings. International Patent Applications are filed under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT). While the USA (with 57,239 applications) and Japan (with 43,918 applications) predictably filed the highest number of patent applications, India has emerged the 2nd

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Delhi High Court Denies ‘India Today’ Temporary Injunction Regarding Trademark Over the Word ‘Today’

/ By / Trademark

Living Media Ltd (“India Today Group”) had filed an application for interim injunction in front of the Delhi High Court restraining Alpha Dealcom from launching a news channel with the name ‘Nation Today’, contending that the latter’s usage over the word ‘Today’ infringed on their trademark over the same. The Delhi High Court held that there was no prima facie infringement as the usage of the word by the two parties was not likely to cause confusion in the minds

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Trademark Parallel Imports: Delhi HC on the Marlboro Trademark case

/ By / Trademark

People say that the world isn’t “black and white”; that there are many shades in between, of which, the grey areas usually raise difficult questions. This belief applies even in the world of Intellectual Property Rights. Parallel imports i.e. lawful import of a genuine trademarked product without the permission of the proprietor thereby creating a trade channel that runs parallel to the proprietors authorized trade channel, is usually called a ‘grey market’ import (see here). Such imports are not ‘black’

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WIPO-WTO Colloquium for Teachers of Intellectual Property

/ By / Others

The WIPO and WTO are jointly organising a two week colloquium from June 16-27, 2014 for teachers of intellectual property from developing countries and countries with economies in transition in Geneva. The colloquium is aimed at being a multidisciplinary activity open to lawyers, researchers, university teachers and economists working in the field. The curriculum for the colloquium and other details can be viewed here. The eligibility criteria is an advanced degree and teaching experience in IP law or international law/economics/management

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SpicyIP Weekly Review (3rd-9th March, 2014)

/ By / Others

  This week, SpicyIP covered an array of topics ranging across the spectrum of IP Law. The SpicyIP story of the week is Aparajita’s post covering the report by the National Council of Applied Research on Impact of Parallel Import on Copyrighted Works. It was opined that this report balances the concerns of producers and consumers, and urges stakeholders to come to an amicable solution, failing which an addition of the proviso to S.2(m) of the Copyright Act would be

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Taking IP on a spin – round 1

/ By / Innovation, Patent

The lines below (emphasis: mine) are taken out of a letter (see here) dated August 2nd, 2013 sent by 4 US Senators requesting the US International Trade Commission (USITC) to investigate India’s international trade (read: IP) policies. “Based on the survey and analysis of results, and to the extent feasible, a summary of U.S. firms’ perception of (1) recent changes in India’s trade and investment policies in selected sectors and (2) the effects of these changes on U.S. firms’ strategies towards India …”

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Revisiting Patentability of Computer Programs and Section 3(k): A Different Perspective

/ By / Patent

This post continues from my previous (academic) posts on the topic re patentability of software, and provides an academic reasoning of what constitutes software / computer programme per se. The reason why I am limiting the issue only to the term software per se is because of the recent discussions draft guidelines issued by our Patent Office on the topic, and the subsequent discussions on the same.   As we know that the term per se did not come into the

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