Breaking News: Satyam withdraws disparagement suit against Upaid

/ By / Patent

This update wasn’t entirely unexpected, given the present circumstances: Satyam filed a motion of Non-Suit against Upaid in its business disparagement case in the Collins County court in Texas some hours ago. In simpler terms, Satyam has withdrawn its suit against Upaid, who were the principal defendants in this case. Recall that I had reported on the disparagement suit twist a few weeks ago here, which had become public after the Maytas deal. At that point in time, Upaid had […]

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SpicyIP:Going Green

/ By / Uncategorized

Quite clearly the hue of the season, much Green was seen in the otherwise gray horizon of the last year-the green bill may have withered, but in sharp contrast green medicine, green gold green fuel, green food was quite the buzz and trendsetter of times to come. I quite perceive this as going back to basics, a bid to derive strength from within and around; to wade through what was a challenging year in more ways than one, to rely

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SpicyIP Questionnaire on Interim Injunctions: Is it time for change?

/ By / Uncategorized

I’ve been assisting Shamnad, for some weeks now, on a paper which attempts to examine the issue of interim injunctions in suits involving patent rights. The matter is of special importance in suits for patent infringement because patent rights are available for only a period of 20 years and since it would take Indian courts more than a couple of years to decide the case it is necessary that we have an effective mechanism for granting interim relief. However at

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Perspectives on the Promotion of Innovation

/ By / Innovation

The link between traditional IP protection and innovation has been coming under greater scrutiny. On this blog too, there has been a good deal of discussion on this aspect. To give a few instances, Mr. Basheer in an interview to the Hindu (about which he wrote a post here) articulates concerns about formal IP systems actually promoting innovation.An anonymous reader had pointed out in the comments to another post dealing with the Indian Bayh-Dole: “… Thus, heavy-duty IP protection has

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Breaking News: Court Orders Indian Drug Controller to "Police" Patents

/ By / Drug Regulation, Patent

I was rather perturbed to learn of a recent Delhi High Court decision which clearly transgressed existing laws/regulations by forcing a linkage between patent and drug regulatory issues. In particular, it directed the Indian Drug Controller (DCGI) to don the mantle of a “patent policing” authority by ensuring that regulatory applications submitted by generic manufacturers do not violate patent rights of originator companies. Readers may recollect an earlier post, which warned against burdening the drug controller with such a patent

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New Year Wishes: The Dawning of a "Collaborative" Era

/ By / Patent

This comes a bit late–but, as they say, better late than never. Here’s wishing all our readers a wonderful New Year ahead. We have much to thank you for. Amongst all the New Year greetings received, the one that really stood out for me was one from Ms Anuradha Maheswari, who runs the Institute of Intellectual Property Studies (IIPS), a wonderful IP academy that does a lot to improve the lot of IP education in this country. She quotes Kahlil

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Ghajini vs Fudgini: Whither Originality?

/ By / Copyright

We bring you a guest post from Nikhil Krishnamurthy, a leading Indian copyright lawyer and someone who’s already blogged with us earlier. He comments on a recent Bollywood movie, Ghajini that appears to be raking in the moolah, and more noteably, has been in the news in relation to a copyright infringement claim against it before both the Madras and the Mumbai High Courts. The claims in both these suits are not entirely clear to me. Are these related suits

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Informal Innovators: Any Good Hearted Patent Attorneys?

/ By / Innovation, Patent

Given an earlier post on “Informal Innovation”, I thought it quite fitting to share with you an email that I’d received from an “informal” innovator. “Dear Sir,Basically I am very small business man doing business related to septic tank installation work in Dehradun (Uttrakhand). I innovated a new idea, where the efficiency of septic tank can be enhanced. I contacted to National Innovation Foundation (NIF) to help me to get patent of my invention but they told that they only

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Creating ‘Informal’ IP Norms

/ By / Copyright, Innovation, Patent

In an earlier post, I touched on something called “Informal IP Norms”. I have attempted to flesh this out a bit more in this Mint editorial. Much more needs to be done in this regard– and this is just a tentative thought. As always, I greatly welcome your comments/insights/critiques on this theme. (Image from here) Creating ‘Informal’ IP NormsCurrent intellectual property (IP) regimes are excessively formalistic in their orientation. Not too surprising, given that their creation and sustenance has largely

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Drawing the line between Copyrights and Designs

/ By / Copyright, Design

A recent decision of a Division Bench of the Delhi High Court, Rajesh Masrani v. Tahliani Design presents an opportunity to highlight certain issues arising from the interaction between copyright and design protection.   The facts:     The Plaintiff, a private limited company under the “creative leadership” of fashion designer Tarun Tahliani, had alleged that the drawings which it made in the course of developing garments and accessories were artistic works under Section 2 (c) (i) of the Copyright

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