SpicyIP’s Weekly Review

/ By / Copyright, Patent

A new feature that our SpicyIP team will be serving you is a weekly roundup of notable IP developments both in and out of India. Image from NYtimes The highlight of the week is undoubtedly the huge Apple-Samsung verdict announced late Friday evening. In an extraordinarily short period of time (3 days) the federal jury in a Californian court came to its conclusion and awarded $1.051 billion to Apple in damages while finding Samsung guilty on most counts of infringement. A […]

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SCP’s Questionnaire on Exceptions and Limitations to Patents

/ By / Patent

Recently WIPO’s Standing Committee on the Law of Patents (SCP) sent out a questionnaire to member states regarding member state’s exceptions and limitations to patent rights. The responses have come in and inadvertently a terrific resource for comparing and contrasting different nuances of patent laws in various countries has been formed. For instance, the public policy objectives of each exception and limitation that a state has are now conveniently listed and displayed; as well as whether the state has concluded

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How Trivial is ‘Kajra Re’ and can Vasundhra Das’ Life Help Indian Copyright Law Progress?

/ By / Copyright

In my previous post I examined the possibility of using the maxim of de minimis non curat lex (which translates to the law will not resolve petty or unimportant disputes) in the context of Indian copyright law. I concluded that yes, in fact, one might rely on this doctrine to fight a claim for copyright infringement under the Indian Copyright Act. To do this, I relied on the decision in the case of India TV v. Yashraj Films (Delhi High

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Is the Delhi High Court the Fairest of Them All? Fair Use & De Minimis Examined

/ By / Copyright

I recently attended a roundtable conference on Patents and Copyright where Professor Shyamkrishna Balganesh, noted copyright scholar from the University of Pennsylvania, was talking about the development of the fair use doctrine in a U.S. context and how there is an unstated dependence on institutions (the judiciary/ U.S. Copyright Office) to do this task. I was concerned that India might have to suffer the burden of such institutional dependence, given the slow pace of case law development and the relative

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CSIR finally discloses details of patent licensing: More than 400 patents licensed over last ten years!

/ By / Patent

Finally, after almost 6 months of RTI applications, appeals and reminders, the Council for Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) has provided me with a comprehensive, lab-wise, list of all the patents that it has licenced in the last 10 years. The only information not provided was royalty figures but CSIR has promised to disclose even these figures in the not so distant future. The entire reply from CSIR can be accessed over here. (The print was small and hence a

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Copyright in Advertising Slogans?: Godfrey Phillips India Ltd. v Dharampal Satyapal Ltd. & Another

/ By / Copyright

This case dealt with the question of copyrightability of advertising slogans. We had earlier blogged on this issue over here. It was decided in early July this year by the Delhi High court. The full judgment is available here. Facts The parties in this case are both pan masala manufacturers. Plaintiffs alleged that the Defendants had copied their advertising slogan, Shauq Badi Cheez Hai and brought the suit against them alleging infringement of copyright, passing off, unfair competition and dilution. The case

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SpicyIP Announcement: NUJS Law Review Special Issue on the Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2012

/ By / Event

SpicyIP is glad to announce that the NUJS Law Review is inviting submissions for its special issue on ‘The Copyright Amendment Act, 2012: Welcome Change or Missed Opportunity?’. The flagship journal of the National University of Juridical Sciences (NUJS) was launched in 2008 under the aegis of its Founding Editor-in-Chief, Professor Mahendra P. Singh.   Below is a call put out by the Editorial Board:   The Copyright Amendment Act, 2012 recently passed by both houses of parliament promises to

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Miscredited authorship violates moral rights of authors says Delhi High Court

/ By / Copyright

In a recent decision, the Delhi High Court on July 5, 2012 granted a permanent injunction against OCA Productions Pvt. Ltd restraining them from broadcasting ‘Ek Kadam Aur’, a TV serial based on Indian novelist Maitreyi Pushpa’s autobiographical work ‘Kasturi Kundal Basey’. Acclaimed documentary filmmaker and National Award winner Arun Chadha filed the suit [CS (OS) No. 1096/2009] claiming authorship over the TV serial and sought damages for breach of special rights under Section 57 of the Copyright Act, 1957. 

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Copyright Act Amendments of 2012: National Seminar at ILS, Pune

/ By / Copyright, Event

SpicyIP is pleased to announce that ILS, Pune will be hosting a 2 day national seminar on the recently notified Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2012. Our previous posts on the amendments can be found here.   The seminar promises to provide an exciting opportunity for students, academics, practitioners and professors to engage in discussions on the impact of the amendments on various industries and stakeholders.  Over 250 participants are expected at the seminar. The schedule for the conference is available below.

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An improved prior art search tool – Google Patents

/ By / Patent

While I might not have been too happy with the update from Google yesterday, the update from Google a few hours ago certainly seems like good news. Google already allows users to search through the entire corpus of US patents and starting this week, they have also added the applications that have been submitted to the European Patent Office.  Not only that, they have also added a specific ‘prior art finder‘ that looks remarkably useful. Once a search result is

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