Two years of continuing disappointment with the Madras High Court

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Image from here It has been exactly two years since the Madras High Court admitted two PILs challenging the constitutionality of the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB) and the Copyright Board; the first filed by Shamnad and the second by the South Indian Music Companies Association (SIMCA).  While the petition against the Copyright Board was rendered infructuous when Parliament amended the provisions of the Copyright Act, 1957 last year, the petition challenging the constitutionality of the IPAB is very much […]

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Announcing the SpicyIP Fellows for 2013 – 2014!

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After a great response to our call for applications for our first SpicyIP Fellowship, we are pleased to announce the selected Fellows for 2013 – 2014. We’d like to thank all those who participated in the Fellowship application process and especially those who continued to send in multiple entries based on the feedback from previous submissions. We received about 40 submissions during the 6 week period from December 14th – January 25th. Of these, 18 were selected as guest posts

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Guest Post: Looking at IPR Policy in Climate change action

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To wrap up our SpicyIP Fellowship applicant series*, we bring you a final post by Anubha Sinha. In this post, she discusses the urgent need to involve and adapt our IPR policy to better address the fight against climate change.  *Note: We are yet to review a few posts by authors that have fallen short of the three posts required for the fellowship. These will be reviewed and published in our normal guest series in the coming week.  Climate Change

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Part I: Is decompilation of software legal under the Indian Copyright Act

/ By / Copyright

In discussions with a few of my colleagues in software development related to mobile applications for Android, Windows, and iOS platforms, a question arose whether studying an existing application (already developed and available for a device) and using the existing application as a study tool is legal under the Indian Copyright Act?  At first glance the relevant provision (Section 52) under the Indian Copyright Act prescribes that studying software is legal.     However, there are many practical issues that

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Part II: Is decompilation of software legal under the Indian Copyright Act

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The previous post discussed the development of the US and European laws as applicable to reverse engineering.  This post compares the Indian provisions with the European and US counterpart legislation.   One important aspect is the growing number of application developers in India for the Android, iOS, Blackberry, Windows platforms.    Usually application developers do not start development of applications from scratch.  A mish-mash of existing and new code is used.  For example, all four of the platforms discussed above provide

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Correction: Meerut scissors GI still in application phase.

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Recently we had a guest post stating that Meerut scissors had in fact been granted GI status. After cross checking a comment we received from Shailendra, we would like to note that we made an error with this post and it is in fact still in the ‘new application’ status. According to the author of that post, the following reports led to the confusion:  The Hindu states:  “For the first time, a handmade tool from micro and small and medium

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Guest Post: Graphene – Indian Patent filings dismal compared to neighbours

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Anubha Sinha, a 4th year student from Dr RML National Law University, brings us her 2nd post for our SpicyIP Fellowship applicant series. In this post, she looks at the research and patents behind a fascinating new material that has been making waves in the science and technology world. After taking note of the tremendous patent activity surrounding this material in the rest of the world, she points out that Indian research centers have been left far far behind in

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Patent Ambush: Big Pharma vs Generics

/ By / Drug Regulation, Patent

The Economic Times (ET) reports that MNC drug firms have been deploying the RTI (Right to Information) route to launch aggressive patent ambushes against generic firms. I quote: “Pharmaceutical multinationals have begun using the Right to Information law to launch pre-emptive legal action against local generic players to protect the market of patented drugs and delay the entry of low cost generic medicines in the 60,000-crore domestic drug market. MNCs are using such information to sue generic firms even at

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Guest Post: For whom is the Indian IPR Regime?

/ By / Patent

Aparajita Lath brings us her third submission to our SpicyIP Fellowship applicant series. Usually, when we’re discussing ‘access’ and IP, we’re referring to diffusion of innovation. In this post though, she points out that for most of our country, accessing the reigns of this system as an inventor is problematic as well. For who is the Indian Intellectual Property Right Regime?   “I went through thirty-five stages. I began with the Queen upon the Throne. I ended with the Deputy

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Guest Post: More GI news as Meerut Scissors granted GI status

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Image from here Aparajita Lath, 3rd year student from NUJS, brings us her 2nd post in the SpicyIP Fellowship applicant series. She looks at the recent grant application of for GI status to Meerut Scissors and also discusses the welcome changes for MSMEs in this post.[Editor’s note: Please note that there was an error and Meerut Scissors have not been granted GI status yet. The cause for confusion and correction has been noted in this post here]  GI to Meerut scissor manufacturers, intellectual property

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