SpicyIP's Weekly Review - September (Week 2)

SpicyIP had a slightly busier week than normal with a good variety of topics being covered this last week. For our previous weekly reviews, see here. (We are currently experimenting with different formats for this weekly review and will eventually settle into one format depending on what readers prefer) 

I would peg the engaging debate that's been going on between our writers over the OUP - DU case as our highlight of the week - Great dialogue about an interesting topic. (I am greatly simplifying the contents of their post to just a line each, so do check out the actual posts for better elucidation of their respective arguments) Continuing from last week's discussion, Prashant brings up the viability of a settlement offer from the publishers. Shamnad responds by stressing that this settlement is a convenience that the Copyright Act's educational exception can ill afford as it sends the wrong signals regarding the scope of the exception.  Prashant in turn follows up by opining that in the given circumstances, DU's best option is probably to accept the settlement offer, an argument that Amlan strongly contests. 

What's the IP scene in India?

        

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The much awaited Roche v Cipla case was finally decided by the Delhi High Court. The decision is very important of course and we are still going through it detail.  After quickly going through it though, Shamnad ponders over seemingly confusing points in the long decision which upholds the validity of Roche's patent while at the same time finding that it was not infringed upon by Cipla. 

Sai Vinod takes us through the GI Registry's dismissal of the 'Tirupatti laddu' rectification plea. As he says, it was a textbook example of an adversarial system of adjudication. A very straightforward case as the burden of proof was on the absentee applicant to disprove the validity of the registration.

In a great explanation and summarization of a complicated area of law, we had a 2 part guest post series from our former team member Mrinalini Kochupillai on the Registrar of Plant Varieties' order on issue of whether Parental lines of Extant Hybrids should be protected under the category of Extant or New Varieties under the Indian Protection of Plant Varieties & Farmers’ Rights Act, 2001 (“PPV&FR Act”).   

The Registrar found that parental lines can only be protected as 'extant' varieties under the PPV & FR Act and Mrinalini takes us through the order in the posts here: Part 1 and Part 2.  

Readers will recall the various RTIs that Prashant had sent to CSIR regarding their patent licensing deals. While they did disclose certain details a few weeks ago, this week they have suddenly reversed their position on disclosing the royalty rates from these patent licensing deals, claiming that it is exempt from being disclosed under the RTI Act. 

One of India's finest IP lawyers, Mr Amar Raj Lall, passed away on 6th of September, 2012. Mr Amar Raj Lall, a senior partner at Lall, Lahiri & Salhotra (LLS) was looked up to by several prominent members of the IP community and he will be remembered fondly. 

Moving on, we took a quick look at some of the controversial and problematic IP draft provisions of the 'son of ACTA' - the secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement. It appears that all the severely criticized parts of ACTA, such as TPMs, the 3 strike rule, banning of temporary reproductions, etc have all been included in this draft Agreement.

And of course, Rajiv brought us August's list of decisions at the Controller's office, with a slight change in format as per reader's feedback. Out of 126 decisions listed, 54 were granted (including partly allowed), 44 refused (including abandoned and withdrawn) and no file uploaded for the remainder (12).

We would also like to remind our readers of the approaching deadline of the Promoting IP Competition, 2012. With a terrific array of judges and a good amount of prize money, we encourage our law student readers to ensure they send in their entries. Details are available here. 

Notable Developments around the world: 

The Open Access groups will be pleased with the new guidelines issued by a diverse coalition of scientists, foundations, libraries, universities and advocates. The guidelines are in response to a growing demand to make research in areas of sciences, medicine and health, more easily and freely available to anyone with a computer and an internet connection. The recommendations come as a result of a meeting held earlier this year by the Open Society Foundation on the 10th anniversary of the Budapest Open Access Initiative. 

While I await the day that we in India have a sufficiently vibrant academic environment to have such rankings, I make do by going through the rankings of law professors in US. Notably, the most cited law professor is Mark Lemley, IP professor at Stanford University. A few other notable IP profs such as Lawrence Lessig and Robert Merges are also on the list. Prof Lemley has also recently come out with a (draft) paper that is catching people's attention, which proposes a solution to the huge Software Patent problem in US.
More in IP scholarship: Written Description, a great IP scholarship blog, covers Amy Kapczynski's latest paper "The Cost of Price: Why and How to get beyond IP Internalism": a thought provoking paper that looks beyond just 'efficiency' as a value while looking into the normative inquiries around the incentives and tradeoffs in the structure of IP based legal thought.

The much hyped Louboutin v. Yves Saint Laurent case was decided earlier this month too, with US' 2nd circuit court of appeals ruling in Louboutin's favour, that color can serve as a trademark in the fashion industry, under certain conditions. Apparently it's a very interesting decision. The Fashion Law Blog covers it in more detail here.

Meanwhile, in USA, Jamiee Thomas-Rasset, the first alleged file-sharer to take her RIAA initiated law suit to all the way to court back in 2007, continues to fight her battle as she now moves on to the Supreme Court over the constitutionality of her $222,000 music piracy fine. 

And that wraps up our Weekly Review for this week! Do drop us a line in the comments if there's something you think we should have included.