Aparajita Lath wrote about the reference (order available
here) made to a Full Bench of the Delhi High Court under the case Reckitt Benkiser India Ltd. v. Wyeth Ltd. to consider as to what amounts to ‘prior publication’ under the Design Act, 2000 in this
post. She discussed the four major issues the HC dealt with.
The week saw Ericsson, the Swedish giant in mobile network infrastructure manufacturing filing a patent infringement suit against Micromax, one of India’s largest domestic mobile handset manufacturers. The suit, filed at the Delhi High Court, involves a huge claim of Rs. 100 crores made by Ericsson by way of damages, which makes it perhaps the foremost in rank in terms of damages sought in a patent suit in the Indian IT and Telecommunications sector. Shouvik Kr. Guha in his
post discussed various facets to this suit. However, what makes the suit even more noteworthy is that the Delhi High Court, in the form of an
interim order by Justice Manmohan, issued an order to Micromax to deposit a certain amount of money, apparently in a bid to protect Ericsson’s monetary interests while the negotiations are continuing.
Aparajita brought to our notice a first of its kind and an interesting case dealing with matters related to the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers Rights Act, 2001 in this
post. She discussed the ruling in Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds v. UOI and Ors where The main question before the court was whether the Registrar had the power to condone a delay in matters regarding filing of opposition. After examination of RulesRules 32 and 33 of the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers Rights Rules, 2003 (‘Rules’) and Section 21(2) of the Act. The Court held that the Registrar should be allowed to condone the delay, and that Rule 32 was directory in nature and not mandatory.
Next I wrote about a local Court in Gurgaon
granting an ex-parte interim injunction against Viacom 18 Pvt Ltd., restraining them from using the trademark ‘Nautanki’ and the accompanying logo last week. Subsequent to this post, we learnt that that the matter was later
withdrawn by the plaintiff. The order dismissed the suit as having been withdrawn, in view of the permission sought by the plaintiff for the same.
The remake ‘Zanjeer’ has run into hot water, not only is it involved in a copyright dispute (see
here) but also involved in a controversy regarding non-payment of dues for the film’s remake rights. In this
post, Aparajita brought to our notice Bombay High Court’s recent order (see
here for order) restraining the producers from releasing any trailers or teasers of the remake Zanjeer/ Thoofan (the Telugu version of the film), until the final judgment on this matter is pronounced.
Prashant discussed
here, an order passed by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) which dismissed at the threshold stage, a complaint filed by a public health (HIV) activist against Gilead Inc. alleging that the company was engaged in anti-competitive activities with respect to licensing of its technologies relating to anti-HIV drugs.
L. Gopika brought to our attention a
press release issued by IPXI,
Intellectual Property Exchange International, Inc., the world's first financial exchange for licensing and trading intellectual property rights,the eight month long review of IPXI conducted by the Antitrust Division of the United States Department of Justice in this
post. In its Business Review Letter, it notes that the IPXI Licensing Model is an efficient model which has the potential to benefit IP owners and users alike by providing lower transaction costs as well as by enabling a more efficient match up of licensees and licensors.
Next, Shouvik Kr. Guha presented a
comprehensive post on the case-
Allied Benders and Distilleries Pvt. Ltd. v. M/s. John Distillers Ltd. & Ors. The question here was whether two trademarks – officer’s choice and original choice were both bona fide and valid and, whether there was any likelihood of confusion between the two. The IPAB held that the marks were not deceptively similar to each other and are not likely to confuse the public. Hence the IPAB rejected the contentions of both the parties that the other’s mark ought to be removed and all related applications were dismissed.
I wrote a
post on the music label Saregama drastically increasing the costs of purchasing copyright of its songs. While earlier, the figure for a song used to be around 6-7 lakh rupees, now the label is demanding 30 lakh rupees for Bollywood classic songs. The owners of the label declined to disclose their reasons for drastically increasing the costs.
The most important development of the week in the IP arena was the Supreme Court of India rejecting Novartis’ bid to patent Glivec- an anti-cancer drug. Prashant presented a
detailed post discussing the judgment. On basis of merits of the case, summarily, not only did Novartis lose its main ground of appeal regarding Section 3(d) but it also lost the points raised by the generics in their cross-appeals against certain aspects of the IPAB’s judgment.
Further, Aprajita brought to our attention in this
post, as to how EU stands to gain double benefits under the EU-India Free Trade Agreement which provides for reduced import duties, and EU’s efforts to extend protection of its GIs(Feta, Mozzarella, Emmentaler cheese) to countries outside the EU by requiring the country with which it is negotiating an FTA to protect some or all of its registered GIs. This pattern has been observed in the EU-South Korea FTA and EU-Singapore FTA. The concerns were raised by Indian dairy-cooperative Amul, which has urged the Commerce Minister to desist from accepting reduced import duties terms of the FTA.
The generic v. innovator battle has moved on to anti-diabetic drugs, with Glenmark has launched a cheaper generic version of pharma multinational Merck’s blockbuster anti-diabetes drug Januvia (Sitagliptin phosphate), as reported by Madhulika Vishwanathan
here. She made observations regarding the patent status of Januvia, and its pricing vis-a-vis the generic drug launched. Furthermore, she
reported that Merck has quickly filed a patent infringement lawsuit agaisnt Glenmark pharmaceuticals in the Delhi high court. Brief details can be accessed
here.
SpicyIP comments of the week:
To Prashant’s post on IPO’s Guidelines for Examination of Biotechnology Applications for Patents: Aaradhna said “The guidelines are, and should be a welcome development in biotech patents landscape in India. At least now we have a set of guidelines to obtain guidance from. I, personally found them of immense help in learning and analyzing biotech claims. However, as for whether the guidelines "constitute rule making", we do not have to re-invent the wheel. After all there are similar, publicly guidelines available for examining biotech patents in UK. We can learn from their experiences, and use the guidelines in our context. One more point, while going through the guidelines, I felt that the guidelines lack patents caselaw-based support. Of course, there are sporadic references made to them in the guidelines. We need more of them in order to provide "teeth" to them. Lastly and most importantly, it is a pity that despite having premier biotechnology-based research institutes like CCMB, IISc, and a host of other biotech research and academic institutes established back in the last century in the country, biotech patent regime is so neglected in India that it is only in 2013 that we could institute our guidelines for examining biotech patent applications. Could we please move faster?”
To Aparajita’s post on restraining makers of Zanjeer from releasing any trailers/teasers: Anushree Rauta informed “A brief background of the case: Prakash Mehra Productions (“PMP”, proprietorship of Mr. Prakash Mehra) had produced the original film Zanjeer. Out of Prakash Mehra’s three sons i.e. Puneet Mehra, Sumeet Mehra and Amit Mehra, Amit Mehra through his company Adai Mehra Production Pvt. Ltd (AMPPL) acquired the remake rights of the original film in Hindi and Telugu languages from PMP. Payment of consideration under the remake rights agreement was to be in tranches. On coming across new articles and on receiving a legal notice from Salim-Javed, AMPPL requested PMP to clarify the claims of the writers and establish the title of PMP with respect to the copyright in the underlying works in the film. The writers always maintained that apart from authorising PMP to use the screenplay in the original film Zanjeer, they had not assigned, and had retained all other rights in the screenplay of the original film. Since the title of the film was not clarified by AMPPL, further tranches of payment were withheld by AMPPL due to which the Remake Rights Agreement was terminated by PMP. AMPPL disputed the termination due to which arbitration was invoked by the parties. The arbitrator passed an order restraining AMPPL from proceeding with the remake of the original film. An appeal was filed challenging the arbitrator’s order in the Bombay High Court wherein the Arbitrator’s order was stayed subject to deposit of the consideration under the remake rights agreement and AMPPL was further directed not to release the film until further orders from the court. The writers in the meanwhile filed a complaint with the Film Writers Association which thereby forwarded the complaint to FWICE. The decision passed in this matter would ultimately determine the fate of the innumerable remakes being made wherein in most of the cases remake rights are acquired merely from the producer of the film. It would also be interesting to see the societies which would be formed for different classes of literary works in cinematograph films due to the non-assignable nature of royalties attributed under the Copyright Amendment.”
International Developments:
Google was blasted by EU regulators for continued privacy violations, as reported
here. Under Google's new
unified privacy policy, which was put into place last year, European authorities argue that it's nearly impossible for users to understand what personal data is being used for what purpose.
Further, Google announced its pledge not to sue any user, distributor or developer of open-source software on specified patents, unless first attacked, known as the
Open Patent Non-assertion Pledge.
Apple’s application for trademark registration in respect of iPad mini was
rejected. The USPTO held that the term 'mini' was merely descriptive of goods or services sold in miniature form.
Microsoft launched an online
Patent Monitoring Service. The service tracks changes to a variety of Patent Registers in Europe and North America to help with its cause. The Patent tracker can also track changes to patent families and legal status.