A Specialist IP Court: Knowing More about Less?

/ By / Uncategorized

Given the exponential increase in patent litigation across the country, one needs to ask if its time for India to institute a specialist IP court. No doubt, we have the IPAB, but its jurisdiction is limited to appeals arising out of Patent and Trademark office decisions and to revocations (patents) and cancellations (trademarks). It cannot adjudicate upon infringement issues. Further, it suffers serious constitutional infirmities, as we allege in this writ petition before the Madras High Court. So, do we […]

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March 2012: Controller’s decisions at the IPO

/ By / Uncategorized

In the month of March 2012, the Controller’s at the IPO did not grant a single patent in actions before them; 23-0.  Although, 15 decisions were issued this month relating to section 3(k), we are unable to provide our case specific comments.  This is because none of these decisions (3(k)) is more than 2 pages with the operative text in a single paragraph.  These 15, 3(k) decisions came from a single Assistant Controller.  All these 3(k) decisions have a common

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CIC on RTI Act and Copyright

/ By / Copyright

The Central Information Commission, in Ms.SakshiMathur v. Ministry of Health and Family, decided on the issue of disclosure of certified copy of question booklet of AIIMS-MBBS Entrance Examination, 2011 and the corresponding answer key. The Public Information Commissioner of AIIMS had initially refused the disclosure inter alia on the ground that the questions and answers were the intellectual property of AIIMS and exempted from disclosure under the Right to Information Act (“RTI Act”). SaiVinod had earlier blogged on IIM’s Copyright

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Bombay High Court denies Barobax ex-parte relief

/ By / Copyright

Tania Sarcar, who has previously blogged for us over here and here, has sent us this guest post on the first day hearing in the suit for copyright infringement filed by an Iranian band against the producers, music directors of Agent Vinod.  Bombay High Court denies Barobax ex-parte relief by  Tania Sarcar The recent controversy in Bollywood over alleged copyright infringement by Bollywood came to light when Barobax Corp, an Iranian music company served a legal notice seeking an injunction

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Madras High Court passes its first-ever ‘John Doe’ order

/ By / Copyright

In an order dated the 29th of March, 2012 Justice Vasuki passed the first-ever ‘John Doe’ order in the history of the Madras High Court. This order was passed in the case of R. K. Production (producers of ‘3’) v. B.S.N.L & 14 other ISP and several yet to be named ‘John Does’ or ‘Ashok Kumars’. The Plaintiffs in the present case were represented by Mr. A.A.Mohan, a leading IP practitioner before the Madras High Court. The order can be

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Is the TKDL a ‘confidential database’ and is it compliant with Indian copyright law?

/ By / Copyright

I recently filed a RTI application with CSIR requesting for certain information on the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL). The main aim of this RTI was to understand the legal basis of the TKDL being a confidential database. Of course, there were some other questions that I raised in this particular RTI. Image from here. The questions in this RTI Application were as follows:  (i) Can any citizen of India access the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL) that has been

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Zanjeer Remake should seek Scriptwriter’s Permission: Javed Akhtar speaks outAkhtar

/ By / Copyright

(Picture taken from here)The regular readers of Spicy IP will undoubted be aware of the numerous controversies involving various rights associated with the so-called ‘remakes’ of popular movies in Bollywood. Allegations regarding unauthorized ‘borrowing’ of movie scripts, plots, scenes or music compositions have cropped up a dime a dozen in the recent times, often starting as lawsuits against the producer/director of the new movies that have culminated in out-of-court settlements. (For prior examples of different categories, see here, here and

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CSIR spends a whopping Rs. 74.24 crores on securing patents in India & abroad; refuses to disclose revenues from patent licensing

/ By / Uncategorized

The Council for Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR), India’s premier civilian scientific research establishment has recently disclosed in response (available here) to a RTI Application filed by me that it has spent a whopping Rs. 74.24 crores or Rs. 74,24,00,000 on securing patents for its inventions in India and foreign countries. Of the Rs. 74.24 crores, only a paltry sum of Rs. 1.78 crores was spent on securing the Indian patents. The remaining Rs. 72.46 crores was spent on securing

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SpicyIP Announcements: 1st Annual NUJS IP Essay Competition

/ By / Event

The MHRD IP Chair at National University of Juridical Sciences (NUJS) and Intellectual Property and Technology Law Society (IPTLS) is organizing the 1st Annual NUJS IP Essay Competition. All students enrolled in accredited graduate programs in law, social sciences or in any related field are eligible to participate in the competition. Topic: Should the process of creating an invention or work determine its protectability as an intellectual property? The Winning entry will receive Rs. 10,000/- and will be eligible for publication at the NUJS

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My Ad or No Ad: Bharat Matrimony sues Google for Anti-Competitive Behaviour in Advertising

/ By / Competition Law, Trademark

Consim Info Pvt. Ltd. filed yet another complaint against Google Inc. last month, only this time it’s before the Competition Commission of India (CCI) for ‘engaging in discriminatory and retaliatory practices relating to AdWords’. In a statement to the Economic Times, the complainant alleged that Google abused its dominant position in online advertising and it requested the Commission to impose measures for ensuring fair competition. The anti-competitive practice in question is the display of links of its competitor, Shaadi.com and

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