Image by storyset on Freepik In a welcome move, the office of Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trademarks (CGPDTM) has invited feedback on IP administration in the country by CGPDTM, and the Copyright and GI Registries. For this, the Office has released a 6 page questionnaire on April 15 and has kept April 22 11:59 PM as the deadline to share the responses to this questionnaire. The questionnaire specifies that the feedback will be kept confidential and only the aggregate data from the survey will be used by the Office.  The questionnaire is divided into the following 5 Sec ..read more

Here is our recap of last week’s top IP developments including summaries of posts on the India- EFTA TEPA, AP High Court’s curious findings on fair use, and Delhi High Court’s order imposing INR 1 lakh as damages on Google for failing to disclose information about their corresponding foreign applications. Anything we are missing out on? Drop a comment below to let us know. Highlights of the Week EFTA-India Free Trade Agreement and Patents Rules Amendment: Compromising Public Accountability and Transparency in the Indian Patent System Image from here One of the highlights of the India-EFTA TEP ..read more

Discussing the implications of unauthorized use of materials for training Generative AI models, we are pleased to bring to you this guest post by Goutham Rajeev and Vedant Bharadwaj Singh. The authors are third year students at the Hidayatullah National Law University, Raipur. Training GenAI: Infringement or Fair Use? By Goutham Rajeev and Vedant Bharadwaj Singh A recent public response by OpenAI’s CTO (Chief Technical Officer) on the data sources used by them to train their new text-to-video AI engine known as Sora has reignited the discussion on the use of copyrighted material to train Gener ..read more

Image from here In Google LLC v. Controller of Patents, the court was hearing an appeal against the refusal to grant a patent on grounds of ‘lack of inventive step’, ‘lack of novelty’ and lack of ‘technical effect’ u/s. 3(k). In this post, I will not focus on the merits of the case. Rather, I will focus on the part relating to foreign application disclosure, discussed in Para 53-55. The court imposed a fine of Rs. 1 Lakh upon the Appellant for failing to disclose that it had filed two corresponding applications, including a divisional application before the European Patent Office (EPO), w ..read more

Image from here Refuse: (1) to vacate an interim injunction, (2) to remand back to the patent office, and (3) to continue allowance of a patent grant! In the last few days, the Madras and Delhi High Courts have passed a few significant orders on these topics. Let’s take a look at these three orders in this quick tidbit. DHC Rejects Natco’s Request to Vacate Ceritinib Interim Injunction  In a detailed order passed on January 9, 2023, the Delhi High Court had granted an interim injunction to Novartis against Natco, restricting the latter from manufacturing and selling its generic version of ..read more

Image accessed from here In Addala Sitamahalakshmi vs State Of Andhra Pradesh, the Andhra Pradesh High Court held that no copyright vests in mathematical and science textbooks. It also observed that ‘educational use for the benefit of students and educational institutions’ is covered under ‘fair use’. I argue that the reasoning used to reach the above conclusions is both problematic and incomplete. The HC fails to take into account the relevant facts of the case in deciding the present case. In this post, I will highlight the shortcomings in the judgement and its (minimal) potential for b ..read more

Here is our recap of last week’s top IP developments including summaries of posts on the Delhi High Court’s decisions in Sulphur Mills v. Dharmaj Crop Guard and Kudos Pharma v. Natco. Along with this dont forget to read our review of SpicyIP posts published in the month of February, from 2005 onwards. This and a lot more in this week’s weekly review. Anything we are missing out on? Drop a comment below to let us know. Highlights of the Week Delhi HC in Sulphur Mills Limited v. Dharmaj Crop Guard Limited & Ors.– Case of Credible Challenge to the Validity of the Patent Recently, the DHC foun ..read more

Recently, India and a group of 4 European countries- Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland (EFTA) signed a Trade Economic Partnership Agreement (TEPA) on a variety of trade related issues, including intellectual property rights. Significantly, the agreement requires India to make substantive changes to its provision obligating a patent applicant to furnish information about their foreign applications corresponding to their application in India. While there are multiple provisions in the agreement dealing with issues like trademarks and GIs (indicatively see here), we are pleased to b ..read more

Image from here [This post is authored by SpicyIP intern Kevin Preji. Kevin is a second-year law student at NLSIU Bangalore. His passion lies in understanding the intersection of economics and public health with intellectual property rights. His previous posts can be accessed here.] Recently, the Madras High Court delivered two seemingly contradictory judgements (on the same day by the same judge!) regarding whether the High Court by way of judicial review under Article 226/227 could interfere with the recommendations of the Opposition Board due to improper examination of evidence or lack ..read more

Template from here [This post is co-authored with SpicyIP Intern Aarav Gupta. Aarav is a third-year law student at National Law University, Delhi. He is passionate about geopolitics, foreign policy, international trade, and intellectual property and spends his time reading and watching sports. His previous post can be accessed here. The authors would like to acknowledge an anonymous reader for sharing this development with us.]  Over the course of the last 2 years, we have seen High Courts remand numerous orders (read: reject) to the Indian Patent Office for reconsideration. Two reasons t ..read more