Evading the mandatory royalty sharing provisions of the copyright amendments through a choice of foreign law: Is it possible?

/ By / Copyright

Eight months after the Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2012 sailed through Parliament, I’m told that at least some composers & lyricists are involved in intense negotiations with producers, with both sides trying to interpret to their advantage the new amendments inserted into the Copyright Act. The most contentious provisions are the provisos in Section 18 and Section 19 which mandatorily requires that all royalties earned from exploitation of the music and lyrics as a part of a cinematograph film be shared […]

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DIPP to issue CLs for Herceptin, Dastinib & Ixabepilone – End of the line for Big Pharma’s patents in the Indian market?

/ By / Patent

Abantika Ghosh of the Indian Express, has reported in today’s edition that the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), the nodal department of the Government of India’s handling IP policy “has started the process of issuing compulsory licences for three commonly used anti-cancer drugs, Trastuzumab (or Herceptin, used for breast cancer), Ixabepilone (used for chemotherapy) and Dasatinib (used to treat leukaemia).”The report mentions that the compulsory licences can be issued under both Section 84 and Section 92 of the

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SpicyIP Fellowship reminder

/ By / Uncategorized

As announced earlier, SpicyIP is offering a Fellowship for researching and writing on developments in the Indian intellectual property rights and innovation policy scenario. There are currently 15 days left to apply for the Fellowship. Once again, at least 3 guest posts are required to be submitted by the end of this period to be considered eligible for the Fellowship. We’ve already received several great entries and we look forward to receiving more as the deadline approaches.  There does however

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Introducing Science, Technology and Innovation Policy, 2013 – II

/ By / Uncategorized

For ‘Introducing Science, Technology and Innovation Policy, 2013-I’ see here For analysis, see here. Gaining Global Competitiveness through Collaboration The STI Policy, 2013 acknowledges open source discoveries as an “interesting innovation system”. Further, it recognizes that knowledge commons is an emerging theme for managing IPRs created through multi-stake holder participation. The policy intends to foster data sharing and access. The policy also intends to tap global resources including Indian diaspora for accelerating the pace of technology-led development. It envisages multi-sectoral

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The Royalty Payment Siphon by MNCs – Independent Director and Minority Voting as Possible Solutions?

/ By / Trademark

Image from here Readers may remember a post that I’d carried some time back about how the relaxation of approval norms for royalty payments by Indian companies was being exploited by multinational corporations to milk their Indian arms of their profit in the form of royalty payments and technology transfer fees. This is in turn had been depriving the minority investors in those Indian companies of their rightful dividend. A report by the Institutional Investor Advisory Services (IIAS) had also

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Introducing Science, Technology and Innovation policy, 2013 – I

/ By / Uncategorized

I shall introduce the ‘Science, Technology and Innovation Policy, 2013’ (“STI Policy, 2013”) which was recently unveiled by the Prime Minister at the 100th Indian Science Congress. I shall analyse the STI Policy, 2013 in a later post. [The STI Policy, 2013 is available here.] Background The STI Policy, 2013 sets out a significant shift in approach of the government. It is pertinent to take a quick look at the previous policies:       a) Scientific Policy Resolution of 1958 (“SPR,

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SpicyIP Weekly Review: January (2013) Week 1

/ By / Others

This new year Barry Sookman announced the most popular intellectual property and technology blogs. It gives us great pleasure to inform you that SpicyIP was ranked 8th best blog in the world. Dennis Crouch’s Patenly-O was rated the best and Micheal Geist’s blog was the best tech blog at 4th place. We thank our readers for their support! Incentives through Recognition? Nobel Assembly Sued for Libel and Unfair Competition (Swaraj Paul Barooah) Image from here Dr. Rongxiang Xu instituted a suit

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Incentives through Recognition? Nobel Assembly sued for libel and unfair competition

/ By / Innovation, Patent

Image from here Incentives have generally proven troublesome in the context of the intellectual property regime. Right from questioning whether the correct amount of incentives are being given in terms of 20 year exclusionary periods (See for eg, 8th and 9th para of my previous post on Patents and Innovation here), to more fundamental questions of how much, if at all, external incentives are required in the first place. (See for eg, Eric Johnson’s paper on IP and the Incentive

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Guest Post: Plain Packaging Laws for Tobacco Products

/ By / Trademark

L. Gopika Murthy submits her second piece for the SpicyIP Fellowship with a guest post on Plain Packaging Laws. The submission discusses the purpose of plain packaging laws as well as the effect of these laws on the intellectual property rights of the tobacco companies. Gopika is a 2nd year student at NLSIU, Bangalore and her first submission can be viewed here.  PLAIN PACKAGING LAWS Recently, a Private Members Bill seeking amendment to the present Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act

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Guest Post: Colours as Non-conventional Trademarks

/ By / Trademark

Rupkatha Basu, a 4th year student at KIIT School of Law, Bhubaneswar, brings us a guest post on a topic that we seem to have not managed to discuss enough on the blog – that of non-conventional  trademarks. Using Cadbury’s famous purple branding as an example, Rupkatha looks into whether colours can be given protection as trademarks in India. This is Rupkatha’s first submission piece for the SpicyIP Fellowship. For those interested in more on the topic, we’ve earlier noted

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