Spicy IP Tidbit: The Taj copyright – a non-issue

/ By / Copyright

By now, everyone has probably heard the story of the ‘other’ Taj – a Bangladeshi film-maker has decided to manufacture a life-size copy of the Taj Mahal, in a location just north of Dhaka. There were early reports of the Indian High Commission in Bangladesh saying it would investigate about whether any copyright laws had been breached. That was soon swept under the carpet- perhaps someone informed the diplomat in question that – ahem – there was a slight technical […]

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Branding the "Himalayas": Descriptive, Generic or a GI?

/ By / Trademark

We bring you a guest post from an IP practitioner, V.C Mathews, who works with RK Dewan & Co in Mumbai and is a graduate of Symbiosis Society’s Law College, Pune. His post deals with a trademark issue involving the use of the term “Himalayan” for packaged mineral water. He opines that since the term “Himalayan” is a descriptive term, it could potentially acquire distinctiveness and is therefore capable of trademark protection. Apart from the issue of whether the plaintiff

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Seminars and Workshops in lieu of the National IPR Campaign being conducted by the CGPDTM and DIPP in association with FICCI

/ By / Uncategorized

In furtherance of the aim of the National IPR Campaign to create larger public awareness of IPR, starting from December 23, 2008, there are a series of seminars and workshops being conducted by the Office of the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trademarks (CGPDTM) and Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) in association with Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) across eight major Indian cities. The issues covered in these seminars vary from a lecture

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Indian Bayh Dole Finally Goes Public: Access to Innovation?

/ By / Uncategorized

PRS, an independent research initiative that aims to strengthen the legislative debate by making it better informed, more transparent and participatory, has published the final version of the Indian “Bayh Dole” bill that was introduced in the Rajya Sabha yesterday. PRS is the brainchild of a visionary, CV Madhukar, who happens to be an Echoing Green Fellow and an Ashoka Fellow. For our previous posts on this controversial bill, please see here. In particular, compare this with the original version

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Guest Post: "Policy" Space in TRIPS

/ By / Uncategorized

We have a guest post today from a very special guest, Dr Henning Grosse Ruse – Khan. Listed below is his brief bio: After joining the Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property, Competition and Tax Law in Munich (Germany) in autumn 2007, Henning Grosse Ruse – Khan has focussed on new approaches for balancing private rights and public interests in international economic law, in particular intellectual property protection. Previously Henning worked as a Lecturer in International Trade Law at the

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Indian Bayh Dole Bill Introduced in Parliament

/ By / Uncategorized

The Indian Bayh Dole bill (technically called “Protection and Utilisation of Public Funded Intellectual Property Bill 2008”) was introduced in the Rajya Sabha (upper house of Parliament) today. SpicyIP will soon bring you a copy of this Bill, as introduced. The Department of Science and Technology is yet to put up a copy of this bill on its website. This bill will, in all likelihood, be submitted to a Parliamentary standing committee, tasked with a careful scrutiny of the bill.

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In-Transit Pharma Consigments, IP Forum Proliferation and the WHO

/ By / Patent, Trademark

A very well researched story from Lison Joseph of the Mint, which I reproduce in full below (critical portions of the piece have been marked in bold). In my interview to the Mint for this story, I stated that the “in-transit” seizures of Indian consignments (of Pharmexcil member companies) in the EU appear to implicate “patent” rights of EU patent owners. And have nothing to do with trademark issues (since the exports were unbranded API’s) or counterfeiting (as traditionally understood)

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Section 3(d) Scrutiny: Indian Patent Database will be Ready by March 2009

/ By / Uncategorized

CH Unnikrishnan, a well known pharma/patent reporter with the Mint ran a very interesting story a couple of days back on the likely section 3(d) scrutiny at the patent office. He states: “India may have denied a patent to Swiss drug maker Novartis AG for its cancer drug Glivec because it considered this to be a mere modification of an existing molecule, but it has granted at least 10 patents in the past 12 months to foreign and local drug

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BECOME CINDERELLA AT ONE DOLLAR?: GREY MARKET IMPORTS PLAY FAIRY GOD MOTHER

/ By / Copyright, Design, Patent, Trademark

The Economic Times reported that French cosmetics and toiletries giant L’Oreal had filed an injunction suit against the discount retailer MyDollarStore, alleging that the latter had infringed its intellectual property rights (IPR) and illegally imported its goods into the Indian market. The report further stated that the two parties are in talks which could lead to an out-of-court settlement. The report pointed out that in such cases the issue for the MNCs is that these allegedly ‘illegal imports’ of top

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SpicyIP Interview: Plant Variety Protection in India – in conversation with the PVP Authority Chairperson

/ By / Plant Variety Protection

Warning: Long post I recently had the opportunity to catch up with Dr S Nagarajan, the Chairperson of the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Authority (PPV&FR). This interaction was prompted by the realization that SpicyIP has not covered PVP (plant variety protection) in a very long time, and that it would be interesting to update on the activities of the Authority of late, particularly since the opening up of the process of registration for protection last year. It

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