Patents do not hinder Access?

/ By / Patent

Recently, Mr. Ranjit Shahani, the president of Organisation of Pharmaceutical Producers of India (OPPI) and vice chairman and managing director of Novartis India, gave an interview to the Financial Express regarding the importance of patents to the pharmaceutical industry and its effects on access to medicines. I’d like to take this chance to react to his statements. I’ll be extracting certain excerpts but the full interview is available here (and it’s a quick read). Disclaimer: I’ll be focusing on the parts […]

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Did the pre-Kurian Patent Office grant thousands of patents in violation of procedure?

/ By / Uncategorized

For the last few years several of us have been astounded by the stunning rate of patent grants by the Indian Patent Offices. Just have a look at the figures: In 2006-07, the patent office granted just 1,911 patents with a staff of 150 examiners and 20 Asst. Controllers. By 2006-07 this climbed to whopping 7,539 patents with a staff of 133 Examiners & 33 Assistant Controllers. In 2008-09 the patent office proceeded to grant 16,061 patents with a reduced

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Bollywood Wars: Multiplex Owners v. Film Producer/Distributors

/ By / Competition Law, Copyright

In this post, I will cover the recent order of the Competition Commission of India concerning the dispute between the film producers and multiplex owners in India, with a focus on the intellectual property issues that have escaped mainstream attention. Background to the Order In early 2009, a dispute arose between multiple Bollywood film producers/distributors and multiplex owners, with the former stopping the release of several of their films till their demands were met. The dispute hinged on the producers’

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Tidbit: Patent Office announces the results of the Patent Agent Examination 2011

/ By / Uncategorized

Our Patent Office announced the results of the Patent Agent examination held in January 2011 today. The results are available on the website of the Patent Office here.  Unlike last time, Individual lists for each city have not been released. The overall pass percentage for the exam is approximately 18.45%.  Out of 1089 candidates who appeared for viva and written examination, only 201 have passed and the result seems to be similar to that of the 2010 examination.  Our hearty congratulations to

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The virtues of notarization & the lack of it in the Patent Rules, 2003

/ By / Uncategorized

Going through some of the file wrappers of Dr. Wobben’s patents (currently under challenge by Enercon India) I came across the Power of Attorney that Dr. Aloys Wobben had made out in the name of his Indian patent agents empowering them to take all steps to prosecute the patent applications before the patent office. The PoA can be accessed over here. Very interestingly below his signature, there was a statement stating that there was no requirement of notarization of the

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Bombay HC on passing off & shape of Vodka bottle

/ By / Trademark

The Bombay High Court recently delivered an interesting judgment pertaining to passing off / trademark law. The dispute was over the shape adopted by the defendant for its Vodka bottle. Gorbatschow Wodka Kg v. John Distilleries Limited Facts The plaintiff which owned one of the top fifteen premium Vodka brands in the world – “Gorbatschow Wodka”, marketed it in a bottle which was quite distinctive in shape. The shape was registered in various jurisdictions. In India, claiming use since December,

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SpicyIP Open Government Project: Draft TK Rules 2009

/ By / Uncategorized

Around 31 years ago somewhere across the T.V. airwaves, Minister for Administrative Affairs Mr. James George Hacker had tried to implement an ‘Open Government’ project which was unfortunately sabotaged by Permanent Secretary Sir Humphrey Appleby. However in the words of he who I cannot remember, “you can never kill an idea”. Image from here. Anyway getting down to the point of it all, we hope to kick off our own ‘Open Government’ project. The very simple, unambitious objective of our

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Condolence: Demise of the longest serving Controller

/ By / Uncategorized

This comes very late in the day, but is a condolence message that had to be written. Last year, we lost one of India’s leading IP figures, Shri Rajendra A Acharya, who passed away at his residence in Pune on the 18th of July 2010. Acharya-ji has the distinction of serving as India’s Controller General of Patents for a good 12 years (a term that traversed the ’80’s and the early 90’s). My guess is that this makes him the

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Copyright Licenses in the Cloud

/ By / Copyright

In this post, I will focus on the licensing issues in the new cloud based services provided by Google and Amazon. As always, I write with the hope that the Indian labels will eventually recognise the onset of the digital age in music and by understanding the issues as and when they come up internationally, they will be in a better position to provide a seamless service to its users when they finally decide to set up such services in

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IJLT-CIS Lecture series to be streamed live tomorrow

/ By / Uncategorized

The Indian Journal of Law and Technology and the Centre for Internet and Society present the lecture series on “Emerging Issues in Privacy: Law, Policy and Practice” on 21st and 22nd May, 2011. The lectures will be covering the following themes: 1. UID Project and Challenges to Privacy2. Privacy, Cloud Computing & Social Networking3. The State and Privacy: E-Surveillance et. al. The following speakers have currently confirmed their presence at the event 1. Dr. Usha Ramanathan2. Dr. Sudhir Krishnaswamy3. Ms.

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