Our first thematic highlight is Ritvik’s fascinating piece dealing with the jamboree of artificial persons, robots and copyright. His primary discussion points were the following:

i. Whether artificial persons (e.g. a company) have copyright related moral rights?
ii. Views regarding copyright ownership over robot created works.
iii. He concludes with his take on who should own the copyright over such works.

Another thematic highlight of the week is Vasundhara’s lucid, yet insightful analysis of whether India’s patent regime follows a ‘first to file‘(FTF) or a ‘first to invent‘(FTI) system. She discusses the following:

i. The text of the Patent Act and the apparent FTI inclination.
ii. The legal history of our Patent Act and how it points towards an FTF system.
iii.  The significance of the invention’s disclosure to the public.

The topical highlight for the week is Vasundhara’s piece on the trade mark tussle between Shaadi.com and SecondShaadi.com. The concepts she discussed were:

i. Genericity of ‘Shaadi.com‘ and the secondary meaning analysis.
ii. Whether the mark describes the service?
iii. Whether a domain name can be treated as a trade mark?

Next, we have Pankhuri’s summary of a panel discussion, at Oxford, on ‘Copyright and Course Packs: A Collision of Competing Values?‘. She briefly discusses the varying viewpoints of the contributors, while providing links to slides of their presentations and a report.

Up next was Prof. Basheer’s piece on the conflict between IP and Competition law. Dealing with the contentious issue of the pros and cons of a purely economic analysis, as opposed to traditional IP analysis while granting patents, he delves into the following areas:

i. The patent office’s inability to understand economic analytics.
ii. The Competition Commission’s flimsy decision making in the past.
iii. Suggests infusing economic experts into patent offices.
iv. Finally, he argues that given the fickle luck based value of a patent, it is very difficult to arrive at a valuation and therefore, there really may be no reconciliation to the IP/Competition dilemma, as any analytical model may be as good as the other.

The events that were brought to your notice this week include: 

7th Emerging Markets Finance Conference, 2016
December 13 – 17, 2016
Westin, Goregaon, Mumbai
Includes a  Panel On Intellectual Property, Copyright and Patent Finance
Details can be found here.

Workshop on Patent Strategies in Overseas Markets for Auto Components Companies
January 10, 2017
India Habitat Centre (Magnolia Hall), Lodhi Road, New Delhi
Details can be found here.

The jobs that were brought to your notice this week include: 

OnMobile Global Ltd.
Senior Manager/Manager – Compliance
Bangalore
Further details here.

OnMobile Global Ltd.
Associate Manager – Legal
Bangalore
Further details here.

International Developments: 

Southeast Asian Countries Launch IP  Cooperation Plan
Prince’s Copyright Owner’s Sue Jay Z’s Roc Nation
Idea of Multilateral Investment Court Mooted