In the UK, the Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society is an organization run and owned by writers that collects money due to its members from the use of their works, distributes the money collected, organizes campaigns and raises awareness about issues that affect writers. It has a membership of over 85,000 writers and has so far paid out £300 million to writers. Distribution of collections takes place twice a year. Recently, as IP Finance reports, the ALCS announced its ‘August Distribution’ where the Society is distributing £7.5 million...
Friday, August 30, 2013
Thursday, August 29, 2013
Last year, we'd announced a new IP writing competition for law students called PIP (Pondering Intellectual Property). This competition was jointly organised by SpicyIP, the MHRD IP Chair at the National University of Juridical Sciences (NUJS) and the Intellectual Property and Technology Law Society (IPTLS). We'd asked law students from around the world to vent their creative musings on the following theme: "Should the process of creating an invention or work determine its protectability as an intellectual property? " We received...
I recently blogged about the dispute between Narayani Productions and Prakash Jha Productions over the movie title Satyagraha. Yesterday, the Bombay HC denied Narayani Productions an interim injunction to restrain the defendants from releasing Satyagraha. We have a copy of the order passed by Justice Kathawala, thanks to a SpicyIP reader.The Plaintiff, Narayani Productions submitted that the Defendants used their power and influence in the...
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
Image from herePeanut paste sold as ‘Plumpy’Nut’, a patented concoction consisting of skimmed milk powder, sugar, vegetable fat, vitamins and minerals, has worked wonders for children suffering from malnutrition. This paste was invented by a French paediatrician and has radically changed the way malnutrition is treated in developing countries. This life saving peanut paste facilitates treatment at home, does not need to be refrigerated and can be...
Soon to be released Bollywood flick Satyagraha starring Amitabh Bachhan and Ajay Devgn has run into troubled waters due to dispute regarding ownership of the film title. Usually, any producer may register a title with various film associations which function as registered societies. The registration is valid for a two year period, after which the owner has to forego the registration and the title may be used by someone else. In the present case,...
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
As many of you now know, two leading figures in Indian IP academia were axed by their whimsical bosses, sending shockwaves across the Indian acadmic community. Swaraj's earlier post on this notes:"In a shocking development, LiveLaw reports that as of last month, Professor N.S.Gopalakrishnan (NSG) has been removed as Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) Chair Professor at Cochin University of Science and Technology (CUSAT) without...
In a shocking development, Livelaw reports that as of last month, Professor N.S.Gopalakrishnan has been removed as Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) Chair Professor at Cochin University of Science and Technology (CUSAT) without any reason being disclosed. As those in the IP community would know, Prof Gopalakrishnan is one of the foremost authorities and an internationally recognized expert in the field. One would be hard-pressed...
Monday, August 26, 2013
Readers may remember the posts we did on Pfizer's testimony before the US House of Representatives and the ensuing series of correspondence regarding it. (See here, here and here). While that was part of the larger issue of US putting pressure on India to change its pharma patent policies, it has been useful in that the exchange of communication has resulted in an actual articulation of reasons behind allegations, rather than mere unilateral claims and allegations (eg: The Special 301 Report) that have otherwise been present. I believe this is...
Sunday, August 25, 2013
Image from hereRecently, as The Hindu reports, Pedana Kalamkari art form received GI protection. Members of Vegetable Dye Hand Block Kalamkari Printers’ Welfare Association, Pedana received the registration certificate from the Geographical Indications Registry (GIR), Chennai. Also, in the GI Registration, this art form has, been recognised as ‘Machilipatnam Kalamkari’. According to GIR’s authorised user no – AU/396/GI/19/12, production of Machilipatnam...
Image from hereRecently, in a case of comparative advertising, the Delhi High Court denied granting an interim injunction against Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL) (here). Colgate Palmolive (India) Ltd. brought an action against HUL for its ads relating to its product ‘Pepsodent GermiCheck Superior Power’ as these ads allegedly disparaged Colgate’s toothpaste ‘Colgate Dental Cream Strong Teeth’. We have blogged about comparative advertising here,...
Saturday, August 24, 2013
Justice KN Basha, a recently retired judge from the Madras High Court has been appointed as the new IPAB Chairman, according to the order issued on August 23 by Chandni Raina, the director of the department of industrial policy and promotion (IPR section) under the Union ministry of commerce and industry.Justice Basha replaces Jusice Prabha Sridevan, who retired a few weeks back. In the interim period, Ms. S Usha had been the acting Chairman. The appointment order issued on August 23 stated that Justice Basha's conditions of service and salaries...
More than a year after the new copyright law came into force we have no news from the Copyright Office on the status of the registration or re-registration of the Indian Performing Rights Society (IPRS) as a copyright society. Emails to the Registrar of Copyright remain unanswered – given the concerns and public interest involved in the registration of IPRS as a copyright society we were expecting the Registrar of Copyrights to set new benchmarks for transparency in the re-registration process. I will be filing RTIs soon with the Copyright Office...
Friday, August 23, 2013
Background We had earlier reported that the Indian government, in 2009, waived the requirement of prior government approval in case of payment of royalty by Indian companies to multinational corporations and allowed such payments through the automatic route. Later, we also carried a Business Standard report which stated that the aforesaid relaxation is being used by the MNCs to divert a major portion of the profits made by their Indian arms in the...
Forbes India has published this interesting article by Sunil Abraham from the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) at Bangalore on the need for private industry to push for strong privacy laws in India. Sunil’s piece is part of a larger effort by CIS to draft a privacy law for India which will discussed and debated through a series of roundtable conferences. The law is based on the recommendations of the Justice Shah Committee Report on the need...
Thursday, August 22, 2013
It has been almost 6 months since BDR Pharmaceuticals filed a compulsory licensing application for the Dastinib patent owned by BMS. We had written about it over here. There has been little news about this CL and so we did a bit of prodding around. And as always the online records of the patent office are incomplete – so we do the next best thing – speculate! As per the documents we found on the Patent Office’s website, it appears that BDR Pharmaceutical’s application for a CL was in serious jeopardy, a few months ago. As per this petition...
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
A copyright row appears to have started between the Satyajit Ray Society and the Delhi Art Gallery, that is organising a countrywide exhibition, which is currently at Kolkata. A catalogue of the exhibition, named Satyajit Ray and Beyond which contains more than 200 images of Satyajit Ray's life and work is at the heart of this controversy. Most of the photographs are those that have been taken by the prominent photographer, Nemai Ghosh who is believed to have the largest collection of Ray photographs. The copyright dispute is not connected to Mr....
On the 31st of July, 2013, the Chancery Division of the England and Wales High Court decided the dispute between Rihanna and Topshop's parent company Arcadia, regarding the use of the singer's image on their T-shirts. Rihanna's claim was based on the tort of passing off.Rihanna's claim of passing off, to be successful, requires satisfaction of three conditions- firstly, Rihanna must have goodwill and reputation among the relevant members of the public,...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
