Thematic Highlight
Continuing his hard-nosed commentary on the access to bedaquiline in India, Prashant wrote a post on the ethics of early access to the drug. Responding to R. Prasad, who argued that disallowing early access to bedaquiline was unethical, Prashant notes the several nuances that were missed out in the aforementioned piece. He argues that reducing the threshold of testing will allow pharmaceutical companies to push riskier drugs into the market without any responsibility for the consequences. He also discusses the persistent issues with the consent form for bedaquiline in India, and how it is inherently relevant to the debate on early access to bedaquiline in India.
Topical Highlight
In their guest post, Abhilasha Nautiyal and Aditya Gupta covered the recent order of the Calcutta High Court which directed Vodafone to deposit INR 2.5 crores in a copyright infringement suit filed by IPRS. In this post, they discuss the nature of the ‘right to receive royalty’ under the Copyright Act and argue that it is more plausible for it to be considered a contractual right rather than a subset of copyright. The further argue that this right if viewed as a contractual one, may only be enforced against the assignee of the copyright, and not any third party infringer.
SpicyIP Events
Pankhuri shared the details and programme information of INTA’s 2018 Middle East and Africa Conference on Innovation, Investment and IP, that is to take place between December 11-18, 2018 at Dubai, UAE.
Other Developments
Indian News
Copyright Office introduces video conferencing mode for hearing of registration applications
Allegations of Forum Shopping: Delhi HC Bars Listing of Certain IPR suits before 3 judicial officers
International News
Canada to apply USMCA cultural exemption to trade in digital media
Russian Startup to Create Blockchain-Based Copyright Network in Uzbek Capital
Japanese Patent Office calls for comments on revision of its dispute system