A tribute to Mr. Amar Raj Lall – one of India’s finest IP lawyers

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Mr. Amar Raj Lall. Image from here. Most of you in Delhi must have already heard about the passing away of Mr. Amar Raj Lall, Senior Partner of Lall, Lahiri & Salhotra (LLS) on the 6th of September, 2012. Although I knew Mr. Lall for only a very brief period, I have several lovely memories of sitting in his office, during a month long internship, listening to him narrating stories about his fascinating life. As a lowly intern I had […]

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CSIR pulls a fast one – does a U-Turn on disclosure of royalties earned through patent licensing

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Just weeks after informing me (read the covering letter over here) that it was in the process of sending me information on the royalties earned through patent licensing, the Central Public Information Officer from the CSIR HQs has done a complete U-Turn by claiming that such information could not be shared under the RTI Act since it was exempted under Section 8(1)(d) of the RTI Act, 2005. This letter dated September 5th can be accessed over here.  This is an

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Delhi University Must Defend

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In Prashant’s last post, he argued that the most appropriate legal position for Delhi University to take, would be to settle with the publishers and procure licences from the IRRO (a copyright society set up by the publishing industry) for photocopying portions of books that are compiled into course-packs for students. At the outset, I would like to respectfully declare my wholehearted objection to such an idea.   I. THE QUESTION OF HOW MUCH First comes the question of how much Delhi University/the photocopy

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A reply to ‘A simple gutting of Copyright Defences’

/ By / Copyright

I felt compelled to reply to Shamnad’s last post on the OUP-DU photocopying controversy for several reasons. The most important objection being that neither I nor Mr. Saika advocated, in my last post, that the Delhi High Court should decide the case just because the IRRO was ready to offer an affordable licence. To repeat Mr Saika’s quote in my last post, he merely states “We have already said in court that as soon as proper licenses are taken from

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Guest Post: Part II – Protecting Parental Lines of Extant Hybrids in India

/ By / Plant Variety Protection

Contd. The Parental Lines case  by Mrinalini Kochupillai (Following the background in the previous post, the key legal issues discussed by the Registrar in the Parental Lines decision are explained here.) ‘Variety:’ Section 2(za) of the PPV&FR Act defines “variety”. Unlike under the UPOV model, the PPV&FR Actpermits an applicant to seek registration under one of four different categories: (i) New Variety (ii) Extant Variety, (iii) Farmers’ Variety; and (iv) Essentially Derived Variety. Only the first two categories are of

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Guest Post: Part I – Protecting Parental Lines of Extant Hybrids in India

/ By / Plant Variety Protection

A few months ago I came across an order of the Registrar of Plant Varieties on the internet. The order seemed to be quite important, given the names and the number of the parties who put up an appearance and to make an honest confession I couldn’t understand anything in the order because the subject was so complicated! Thus we set out in search for an expert and it just so turned out that one of our former bloggers, Mrinalini

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Roche vs Cipla: Pondering the Puzzle

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The much awaited Roche vs Cipla judgment is out. And much like the Ayodhya judgment, it runs into innumerable pages, ensuring that only the most perseverant brave through it.  Rated as India’s first drug patent decision in the post TRIPS era (post trial), it marks an important watershed in Indian patent history. I have managed just one quick reading of the decision and will therefore offer very tentative observations and raise some questions. As Shouvik noted in his post here,

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OUP vs DU: A Simple Gutting of Copyright Defences?

/ By / Copyright

Imagine yourself as a judge, blessed with legal acumen, integrity and what not. A case is brought before you, as below: A person (Ashok) walks upto a shopkeeper (Ravi) and demands money for allegedly patrolling Ravi’s store and offering protection from thieves and the like. Ravi protests stating that he did not appoint Ashok to render the said services. In fact, Ravi had no idea that Ashok was doing so, and importantly, Ravi’s locks and other security systems within the

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Govinda gooovinda! Closer look at G.I registry’s decision on Tirupati laddu rectification plea

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The Tirupati laddu rectification application before the G.I Registry is a textbook example of an adversarial system of adjudication. The NIIST-CSIR Scientist, R.S. Praveen Raj who instituted the rectification proceedings failed to turn up for the hearing and this left the huge burden of disproving the validity of GI tag  undischarged. As expected, the Asst. Registrar of G.I Chinnaraja G. Naidu on July 30, 2012 dismissed the rectification application without much effort. The order further imposed a fine of Rs. 10,000/-

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Is this a ‘fair’ solution to the OUP/CUP-DU copyright infringement lawsuit?

/ By / Copyright

After my post yesterday on the OUP-DU photocopying copyright infringement case, I received a very interesting email from the Managing Director of Cambridge University Press India Pvt. Ltd. – Manas Saika. In his email, Saika provides a rather simple solution to the current impasse at DU and which solution also appears to be quite affordable. For some reason, most newspapers or even the Facebook group set up by the DU students does not seem to carry any information on this

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