Statutory licensing for radio stations to be dropped from Copyright Amendment Bill, 2010?

/ By / Copyright

The Times of India & the Economic Times have both reported that radio stations are opposed to any move by the HRD Ministry to do away with the proposed ‘statutory licensing’ provision in the Copyright (Amendment) Bill, 2010. It is not even clear whether the Ministry has actually proposed such a move. Image from here. As per Section 31 of the Copyright Act, 1957 a compulsory licence for broadcast could be issued by the Copyright Board only if the works […]

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Spicy IP Tidbit: ‘Bold strategies for Indian Science’ by Prof. Gautam Desiraju

/ By / Innovation

One of the recent issues of the international weekly journal of science, Nature, carried an interesting and witty article on the state of Indian science. The article titled ‘Bold strategies for Indian Science’ by Gautam Desiraju, a Professor of Chemistry, at the prestigious Indian Institute for Science (IISc.), Bangalore. The article can be read over here. (Image from here) In this article, Prof. Desiraju laments at the slow progress of Indian science; on how India has not produced a single

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World IP Day: A Natural Take

/ By / Innovation

SpicyIP wishes all of its readers a very imaginative IP day. Each year, we’ve commemorated this occasion with a short note, and also offered up a new SpicyIP product (a database/website etc) for public consumption. This year, we bring to you an exclusive IP writing competition titled Pondering IP (PIP). This competition is organised under the aegis of the Ministry of HRD Chair at WB NUJS, but in collaboration with IPTLS (a student run IP society at NUJS) and SpicyIP.

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Kenyan Court holds Anti-Counterfeit Act unconstitutional

/ By / Uncategorized

UNAIDS Executive Director welcoming the decision A couple of years ago we had blogged about the controversial Kenyan Anti-Counterfeit Act that had been passed in 2008. At that time, I had written that its broad definition of counterfeits would include generics and would be severely problematic: “The problematic part of the legislation is that it recognises intellectual property rights of pharmaceutical products registered in any part of the world and not just in the country of export or import….  The legislation

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The review petition: Will Dr. Kardam stop the IPO from slipping back into the dark ages?

/ By / Uncategorized

  Continuing from our last post on the latest RTI fiasco before the Intellectual Property Office (IPO), we have now prepared a ‘review’ petition which we will mail to the IPO by tomorrow. The ball is now in Dr. Kardam’s court – if he accepts the contentions in the review petition he will have to necessarily accept that the RTI Act, 2005 overrules the existing procedures under various IP laws to request information from different IP offices. If he rejects

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Patent issues on date of decision of grant

/ By / Patent

  A division bench of the Delhi High Court has brought a definite end to the practice of mischievous serial pre-grant oppositions and affirmed the single judge ruling in the matter of Dr. Snehlata Gupte and Others V. Union of India.  Shamnad had, in a previous post while discussing the single judge order had said that more Indian party specific cases would lead to greater objectivity in the patent system.  It is now certain that all inventors, whether Indian or non-Indian, now

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SpicyIP Announcements: The First PIP (Promoting Intellectual Property) Competition 2012

/ By / Uncategorized

The First Annual NUJS IP Essay Competition 2012 announced last month has now been renamed as the PIP (Pondering Intellectual Property) Competition, 2012. We are pleased to announce that SpicyIP will co-host the first edition the competition along with the MHRD IP Chair at the National University of Juridical Sciences (NUJS) and the Intellectual Property and Technology Law Society (IPTLS). All students currently enrolled in full-time graduate program anywhere in the world can participate in the competition by submitting essays

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Moral Rights for Moral Wrongs – Dismantling of the Bhilai ‘Flight of Steel’ sculpture

/ By / Uncategorized

If you are an artist or sculptor or just someone who just appreciates good art, the recent episode concerning the destruction and dumping of the sculpture ‘The Flight of Steel’, an iconic sculpture (which was later renamed ‘Murga Chowk’) in Bhilai, is sure to irk you to an uncomfortable degree.  This is a curious case of a seventy year old artists being humiliated after being commissioned by Bhilai Steel Plant to construct a steel sculpture in a designated area covering about

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A RTI googly from Dr. Kardam

/ By / Uncategorized

In a googly under the RTI Act, Dr. Kardam, Deputy Controller of Patents & Designs and also the Appellate Authority under the Right to Information Act, 2005, at the Intellectual Property Office, has effectively killed the application of the RTI, 2005 to information held by the Patent Office, Trade Mark Registry & Geographical Indications (G.I.) Registry. Image from here. In a recent decision, available over here, Dr. Kardam has ruled that the RTI Act, 2005 will not apply in those

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The need for an‘independent’ review of the TKDL project

/ By / Uncategorized

I would like to conclude the last few posts on the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL), with a call for an independent review of the entire project. In specific, the review should examine the TKDL on the following points:  (i) Copyright infringement: In of my earlier posts, I had raised the issue of whether TKDL was compliant with the Indian Copyright Act, 1957. The ‘copyright issue’ strikes at the very heart of TKDL for the very same reason that Google

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