Highlight of the Week
This week’s highlight is Rajiv’s two-part post on the newly released Guidelines for the Examination of Computer Related Inventions. In part I, he analyses the guidelines and notes that they explicitly state that CRIs may be hit by Section 3 (k), (l), (m) and (n), and compares the guidelines with the US and European position. A flurry of reader comments prompted him to post a second part, in which he deals with the examples in the guidelines in the context of the Alice judgement.
Earlier in the week, Prof. Basheer published the fourth part of his series on Specialised IP Courts in India. In this installment, he examines the Copyright Board, a tribunal constituted under the Copyright Act 1957. After a brief overview of the constitutional challenge to the body, he goes on to explain that it has simply ceased to function at all, leaving parties to approach courts to set royalty rates.
Aparajita then brought us a post on Data Infosys v. Infosys Technologies, in which a full bench of the Delhi HC held that the prior permission of the Civil Court is not required for the initiation of rectification proceedings before the IPAB.
She followed up with another post, in which she dealt with the Delhi HC’s decision in Guinness World Record v. Sababbi, in which the court directed the re-transfer of all cases valued below Rs. 1 crore back to the Commercial Division of the High Court, from the jurisdictional district courts.
Prof. Basheer then put up two posts, both of which had been circulated on the SpicyIP mailing list two years ago, on the use of compulsory licenses to copyrighted works. In one, he examines the options before Wendy Doniger in the wake of Penguin’s decision to pulp its stock of her controversial book. In the other, he examines the potential for stifling free speech through the use of convoluted licensing procedures for works such as The Annihilation of Caste, whose publication could be delayed by a government wishing to keep prospective publishers in the dark as to the copyright status of the original work.
Announcement
International Developments
- Smartphone patent wars: Samsung has scored a win at the CAFC, which overturned a jury verdict and held that two of Apple’s slide-to-unlock and auto-correct patents were invalid, while a third patent was not infringed by Samsung.
- Kylie Jenner has applied for a trademark on her first name; Kylie Minogue has instituted an opposition proceeding.
- The General Court of the EU has ruled against Coca Cola in its attempt to trademark a new bottle shape.