Posts Tagged: "India"

In 2019, the first-ever United States-India collaboration on intellectual property rights (IPR) education was launched. Program participants included entrepreneurs, students, and academic faculty. The initiative brought together multiple governments and agencies for a blending of ideas and priorities that elevated the experience for participants and advanced U.S.-India relations. The outcome was a sense of U.S.-India ‘team’ in collaboration to advance the cause of intellectual property education in India. The United States Consulate General Kolkata, India funded the creation of an IPR education initiative that included a series of webinars and a week-long series of summer workshops presented as the first United States-India Symposium on Intellectual Property Rights. Workshops focused on the value, importance, and use of IPR as a driver of economic success. The program was promoted within the practitioner, academic, and business community through email, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social media including distribution channels of the local partners.

For a country of 1.3 billion people who pride themselves on ingenuity, entrepreneurial spirit, and innovative thinking, a significant percentage of the Indian population is woefully unaware of trademark infringement and intellectual property theft. At the beginning of 2010, the Indian e-commerce scene was still in its nascent stage but within the next five years, the growth was unprecedented. This was a result of the rapid internet access proliferation combined with the telecom boom. The budget phone segment and the affordable data tariff pushed the tier-II and tier-III cities into the fore. Just to put things in perspective, according to recent studies, there are close to 600 million phone users in India with over 300 million smartphone owners, which is just 20 million shy of the population of the United States (as per 2018 records). With a sizeable portion of the population heavily consuming online media and transacting digitally, there is a huge market for service providers and aggregators. Leveraging the demand for such service providers, startups from all over the country have mushroomed in a frenzy. Under the current government, initiatives like “Make In India” and “Startup India” have further bolstered the growth of these SMEs.

Does an architect, as author of an artistic work in the form of a building covered by copyright, have a right to restrain the owner of the land to demolish the building and construct another in its place? The Delhi High Court of India recently answered this firmly in the negative in the case of Raj Rewal v. Union Of India and Ors. The Delhi Court’s judgment gave preference to requirements of urban planning over the moral rights of an architect. It held that the owner of the building has full power to dispose of or destroy it. The judgment is significant in its contribution to the jurisprudence on the scope and limitations of “moral rights” in Indian Copyright Law.

In 2002, India’s Patent Act 1970 [“the Act”] was amended to include Section 107A. This provision says that any act of making, using, selling or importing a patented invention solely for uses reasonably related to the development and submission of information required under any law in India, or in a country other than India, shall not be considered as infringement of patent rights.  This provision also outlines India’s Bolar exemption. As per the “Bolar doctrine,” which arose out of the U.S. case of Roche Products v. Bolar Pharmaceuticals (1984), it is permissible for third parties to carry out research and development on patented products (especially drugs) for the purposes of submitting information as required by regulatory authorities. The purpose of this provision is to ensure that third parties can conduct research and development and obtain prior regulatory approvals, enabling them to launch the patented products on the market as soon as the patent term expires. This ensures that patent holders do not get a de facto monopoly on their inventions after expiration of their patent term. Further, it ensures that the public has access to cheaper generic versions of the drugs immediately after expiration of the patent term. In India, the scope of this provision has been controversial for some time now, leading to a slew of litigation between major international pharmaceutical companies and Indian generic manufacturers claiming the Bolar exemption. In the recent combined decision in the matters of Bayer Corporation v. Union of India & Ors. LPA No. 359/2017 and Bayer Intellectual Property GMBH & Anr. v. Alembic Pharmaceuticals Ltd. RFA(OS)(COMM) 6/2017 (March 22, 2019), the Division Bench of the Delhi High Court laid these controversies to rest by deciding the question of whether export is permissible under this provision.

A 2018 amendment to the Indian Commercial Courts, Commercial Division and Commercial Appellate Division of High Courts Act, 2015 (“Commercial Courts Act”) makes it mandatory for a party to exhaust the remedy of mediation before initiating court proceedings under the Commercial Courts Act, with the limited exception of cases where urgent relief is being sought. Patent infringement disputes, being disputes of a commercial nature, are governed by the Commercial Courts Act and, therefore, the mandatory pre-institution mediation provision applies to such disputes. The time bound mediation procedure envisaged in this provision allows a patentee to not only bring a possible infringer to the negotiation table under the threat of future litigation but also allow patentees to resolve disputes in a timely manner by avoiding long-drawn litigation in Indian courts. Patentees can now consider a different strategy when considering steps for enforcement of patent rights in India in view of the possible advantages of such mediation proceedings discussed in this article.

Earlier this year, the Supreme Court of India set aside an order of the division bench of the Delhi High Court that revoked a patent granted on genetically modified cotton, holding that the single bench of the High Court should assess the patentability of the invention after hearing arguments from both sides. The Indian Patent Office granted Patent No. 214436 to Monsanto Technology LLP on genetically modified cotton. In 2016, Monsanto filed a suit before the single judge bench of the Delhi High Court [Civil Suit (Comm) No. 132 of 2016] alleging infringement by Nuziveedu Seeds Ltd., which responded with a counterclaim for invalidity of the patent, among other claims. The single judge ruled in favor of the petitioner and granted an injunction. On appeal, the division bench of the Delhi High Court vacated the injunction and invalidated the patent. That decision was set aside by the Supreme Court, which held that the matter at hand was the injunction and that patentability issues must be dealt with separately by the High Court. This suggests a changing mindset by the Indian courts regarding patentability of genetically modified living organisms. India may now be set to join the league of various other nations that respect biotechnological inventions.

For life sciences industries and research organizations that utilize any biological resource from India for research, commercial or other purposes, awareness and regulatory compliance with India’s Biological Diversity (BD) Act, 2002 could mean the difference between success and failure. India became a party to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), a multilateral treaty, in 1994. In order to comply with the CBD’s provisions on conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity with fair and equitable benefit sharing arising from utilization of genetic resources, the country enacted the BD Act in 2002, and the corresponding Rules in 2004. In 2012, India ratified the Nagoya Protocol, a supplementary agreement to the CBD that mainly focused on strengthening the implementation of benefit sharing, and subsequently issued the Guidelines on Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) in 2014.Under the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), the implementing system of the BD Act is three-tiered. The National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) is at the central level, the State Biodiversity Boards (SBBs) are at the state level, and the Biodiversity Management Committees (BMCs) are at the local level, with each authority performing specified functions.

This week in Other Barks & Bites: the Federal Circuit affirms a Section 101 invalidation of patent claims in favor of Mayo Collaborative Services; Apple wins an order to limit damages in Qualcomm patent case; Google frets over proposed European Union copyright rules; India proposes jail time for film piracy; patent validity challenges drag down the stock of a major pharmaceutical firm; and a snag in the U.S.-China trade talks throws Wall Street for a loop.

The number of trademark applications being filed by foreign companies with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has been growing steadily – and in China’s case rapidly – since 2013. In 2013, a total of 328,180 trademark applications were filed in the USPTO, of which 57,977 (17%) were filed by foreign applicants. In 2017, 451,009 trademark applications were filed with the USPTO and the total number filed by foreign-based applicants rose to 119,883 (26%)… It is important for U.S. companies to recognize that the increases in trademark filings in general and by foreign companies, in particular, signify future stiff competition in the marketplace and potentially serious threats to existing trademarks.

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has published its annual World Intellectual Property Indicators. For the second consecutive year, the number of design applications filed worldwide continued to grow, with an estimated 963,100 applications filed in total globally. The 2016 growth rate was 10.4%, following 2015’s more modest growth rate of 2.3% and 2014’s 10.2% drop in applications. 90% of the growth in 2016 can be attributed to increased filings in China.

Thursday, September 6th, marks the 24th anniversary of the issue of a seminal patent in the field of MIMO wireless communications. Its inventor, Dr. Arogyaswami Paulraj, is a member of the 2018 class of inductees into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. Today, we return to our Evolution of Technology series to explore the story of how this inventor took advantage of his own academic skills to come to the United States and pioneer this major advance in wireless communications.

BRICS is an acronym for an association of five countries: Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Over the last 25 years, the BRICS economies have been at the forefront of a paradigm shift in the sands of the global economy towards developing economies. This is exemplified by their share in the global economy… Developing a patent filing strategy that includes BRICS economies could be challenging due to the presence of varying national legislation, each mandating its own set of procedures. A precise idea of the costs that could be incurred will go a long way in facilitating strategic decision-making and budget forecasting.

As we reflect on the one-year anniversary of India’s IPR policy, it is fitting that Indian government leaders are focused on job creation… Ultimately, though, India will be unable to take full advantage of the transformative benefits of a strong IP system unless and until it addresses gaps in its IP laws and regulations.

Make in India suggests that India is not empowering the nation to invent more or further but only to serve as a third wheel for other technological giants… India as a nation has a history of a glorious and innovative past. In our mythology, we have a knowledge bank of scientific thoughts related to flying machines, medicinal science and even genetic advancements. However, the current state of scientific and technological affairs is quite grim in India. India has failed to exploit its historical and scientific know-how to its fullest, and that has hampered the growth of the country in terms of its technological advancements.

In the intellectual property (IP) space, knowledge workers come from both Eastern and Western cultural backgrounds. In Silicon Valley and other hubs of innovation, the melding of societal variations most often goes smoothly. However, sometimes not-fully-assimilated Eastern managers get named to groups heavily involved with patents and trade secrets by well-meaning CEOs or founders. What have they missed? That these Eastern managers do not always sync with Western wage earners put in their charge—especially when it comes to workstyles and idea formation.