Hollywood v. Bollywood v. Tollywood: When is ‘plagarsim’ equal to ‘copyright infringement’?

/ By / Copyright

The last few weeks have been witness to two high profile disputes between Hollywood and Bollywood on one hand and Bollywood and Tollywood (The Bengali movie industry) on the other hand. It has been recently reported that BR Films has agreed to pay 20th Century Fox a sum of $ 200,000 dollars as compensation, in an out of court settlement, for remaking My Cousin Vinny in Hindi under the title Banda Yeh Bindaas Hai (This Guy is Fearless). As reported […]

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Microsoft Word at the receiving end of Patent Infringement suit

/ By / Uncategorized

A ‘landmark’ injunction was granted against Microsoft on Tuesday, Aug 11th, when  the District Court of Eastern Texas granted an injunction against the buying, selling, importing and/or marketing of copies of Microsoft Word, one of Microsoft’s flagship products. Specifically, it bans any version of Word which can open ‘custom XML’ files (these include .DOCX, .DOCM, and .XML files) as these allegedly violate the patent of a Canadian company called i4i. It does however allow the for support and assistance for

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Strategically Challenging Transit Drug Seizures at the WTO: EC vs Netherlands?

/ By / Patent

Pursuant to our post highlighting a UK decision involving Nokia and its impact on the current controversy involving the seizure of transit drugs from India, Joe Mathew of the Business Standard ran an interesting piece highlighting this issue. Provocatively titled “India Warned on Moving WTO over Drug Seizures”, Joe states as below: “Even as India considers the European Union (EU) directive that allows seizure of goods-in-transit by its member countries as violative of the World Trade Organization’s TRIPS (trade-related aspects

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Dr Vivekanandan appointed as New Dean at IIT Kharagpur Law School

/ By / Uncategorized

Dr VC Vivekandandan, a leading IP academic from India was recently appointed as the Dean of the prestigious Rajiv Gandhi School of Intellectual Property Law (RGSOIPL), IIT Kharagpur. RGSOIPL was established in the year 2006 by IIT Kharapur in collaboration with the George Washington University Law School, Washington DC. RGSOIPL is the brainchild of Mr. Vinod Gupta, CEO of InfoUSA and Life Fellow of IIT Kharagpur, who proposed its setting up and also promised a substantial grant to that end.

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WIPO slams rumours of Global Patenting System

/ By / Patent

Recent rumours of the international community’s plans to push for a “Global Patenting System” have created a stir in WIPO’s corridors in the heart of the Peace Capital. Pharmabiz report inaccurate and misleading A report in Pharmabiz in particular irked the organisation sufficiently to have the Director of its PCT International Cooperation Division send a curt response to the website, denying outright any allegations about a possible new version of the PCT regime. (The letter, which I quote in substantial

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NUJS IP Talk: Watal on TRIPS and Doha

/ By / Uncategorized

A reminder that we have Jayashree Watal speaking on “TRIPS and the Future of Doha” at NUJS on Wednesday (12th August) at 3 pm in the NUJS auditorium. As noted in the earlier post, Ms Watal intends to cover the current Doha negotiations, TRIPS and Development, IP and Public Health Issues, and issues of special interest to India such as geographical indications and protection of biodiversity. For those of you in and around Kolkata, I hope you can make it.

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A Desi Model for Affordable Healthcare?

/ By / Drug Regulation

In few posts earlier, SpicyIP has dealt with the issue of affordable healthcare without taking sides (neither pro-big pharma nor pro-generics). Continuing in the same vein, in this post we shall consider alternative effective and cost-effective indigenous models for providing affordable and accessible healthcare to Indian consumers. In an interesting article in the Outlook, a model adopted by authorities in Chittorgarh (this hallowed town in Rajasthan needs no introduction) has been lauded. According to the article, prices of essential medicines

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The Competition Commission: Separation of Power troubles again?

/ By / Competition Law

Earlier on this blog, a series of posts had covered some of the IP-related issues in the Competition Act, 2002. Now, with several of the Acts provisions in force, I intend to look at some aspects of the Act in detail. Particularly, I intend to focus on the following areas; though with the help of our readers’ comments, I hope that the discussion shall cover other related areas too: 1. The Competition Commission 2. Exclusive agreements: When are they anti-competitive?

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Ramkumar vs Cell Importers: India’s Biggest IP Case Yet?

/ By / Patent

The Madras High Court recently dismissed a writ petition filed by Ramkumar against the orders of the Customs Commissioners (in Chennai, Mumbai and Delhi). As noted in previous posts, these detailed orders by the commissioners held in favour of the cell phone importers (such as Samsung, Hansum and Spice Mobile), noting that Ramkumar’s patent did not cover “dual SIM” phones in their entirety, but only those dual SIM phones that permitted simultaneous communication as well. Ramkumar proceeded to challenge these

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SpicyIP Tidbits: E-book on Evolving Contours of GIs

/ By / Geographical Indication, Publication

There is growing awareness in India of geographical indications as a separate form of intellectual property, even if there is constant mis-reporting of GIs as patents, trademarks, etc., which we will continue to berate here until there is actual clarity on the differences! Meanwhile, to help understand the international policy background in which GIs have emerged, and its application in various parts of the world, the Institute of Intellectual Property Studies (IIPS) and the MVIRDC World Trade Centre have brought

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