We are delighted to inform you that we, BananaIP Counsels were a part of The CIIPC 2nd Annual Roundtable Conference on Innovation, Intellectual Property and Competition, which was held on July 1st and 2nd of 2017 at Taj Westend, Bangalore. Few of the most distinguished delegates like, members of the academia, policy makers, industry stakeholders and academically-minded practitioners discussed on emerging issues at the interface of innovation, intellectual property & competition law and policy. The First Annual Roundtable on Innovation, Intellectual Property and Competition, held last year in New Delhi, was well attended. This time around, in continuance with the same tradition there were open and nuanced discussions on the most relevant and contentious issues concerning Intellectual Property area of law and economic policy, with special emphasis on recent developments in India.
July 1st 2017, Session I, II and III and a special address by Hon’ble Justice Prathiba Singh (Delhi HC):
On the first day of the conference, Prof. (Dr) Ranbir Singh, Vice Chancellor of National Law University, Delhi made welcome remarks, which was followed by an introduction to the panel and the agenda of the conference by Yogesh Pai, Co-Director, CIIPC, National Law University, Delhi. The introductory remarks then followed with Session-I focusing on Innovation Policy: What can it teach IP Policy- Making in India? Prof. (Dr.) Shamnad Basheer, the founder of Spicy IP and Honorary Professor Nirma University, was the Moderator for the session.
Dr. Subhashish Gangopadhyay, Founder, and Research Director of India Development Foundation spoke on Scalability in Innovation giving an example of Israel, as a small country has grown in innovation and encouraging budding entrepreneurs. Prof. Anil K Gupta, IIM Ahmadabad, and Founder Honeybee Network discussed on ‘Patent pooling and the effects of unused, expired and abandoned patents’. He also highlighted that different states should acquire such patents in order to safeguard innovations. Furthermore, Dr. Chirantan Chatterjee, Assistant Professor, Indian School of Business spoke on issues related to Software patents- whether it is patentable or not. More importantly, he emphasized on how India should shift its focus from Policy-based evidence to Evidence-based policy. The last panelist, Mr. Ananth Padmanabhan, Fellow, Carnegie India, spoke on Copyright and Innovation focusing mainly on how the world has seen innovations in various content Platforms such as Netflix and YouTube. His key focus was on channelizing the content on the platforms and help to protect platforms by evolving them to push content effectively.
The key discussions among the panel and the audience comprised of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning and how it is controlling the legal market by eradicating basic contract drafting work etc., and of course the Stock market. Furthermore, the key emphasis was on, who owns or controls the data in case of data sharing for furtherance of innovation in various fields. Dr. Shamnad Basheer also made interesting remarks on Technology Licensing; Openness of data and government reforms with the same should go hand-in-hand.
The topic for Session II in the afternoon was Role of IP and Competition Policy in Technology Markets: Business and Industry Perspectives. Prof. Jay P. Kesan, moderator for the session is, a Director for Intellectual Property and Technology Law Program, University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign. The session was chaired by five other distinguished panelists like Mr. Atul Jain, Consultant- Legal, Intex Technologies (India) Ltd focused his discussion on Patent Royalty and anti-competitive issues related to the mobile industry at large. He also made subtle remarks on how NDAs can be anti-competitive in a few patent cases. Dr. Sheetal Chopra, IPR Advocacy, Ericsson India Ltd emphasized on Indias growth towards 5G technology and also showcased the best practices of Ericsson by demonstrating statistics. Ms. Latonia Gordon, Director of Standards Policy, Microsoft added an interesting note that, the whole world is currently shifting towards Internet of Things (IOT) and focourse 5G. Furthermore, IOT is the new era in the technology industry where every day companies are coming up with new innovations, like machines and cars talking each other and communicating in the same language, she added. Dr. Kirti Gupta, Director, Economic Strategy, Qualcomm spoke on IP Licensing and its strategy.
After a short coffee break, Session III resumed which focused on Patent Remedies in a state of flux: Principles and Practice. Hon’ble Justice Prathiba M. Singh, Judge, Delhi High Court was the moderator for the session and five other distinguished panelists chaired the session: Prof. (Dr.) Shamnad Basheer, Founder, Spicy IP, and Honorary Professor Nirma University, Ms. Bitika Sharma, Partner, Singh & Singh Law Firm LLP, Dr. Rafal Sikorski, Senior Partner, SMM Legal, Poznań, Dr. Feroz Ali, IPR Chair Professor at IIT Madras, Mr. Sandeep Rathod, Assistant General Counsel, Mylan Laboratories Limited.
The main crux of this session was the Exclusivity in Patents and Compulsory licenses and its nuances. The panel also discussed on various landmark decisions like Nexavar case, Nichia case, 3M Innovative Products case, which focuses on how courts refrain from granting injunctions but, have sanctioned on-going royalty. The courts in these cases have asserted that, to demonstrate injury in a patent case, one must prove “irreparable injury” as a standard. Rafal Sikorski brought up interesting topics on Copyright Law in EU and its stance in granting injunctions in Copyright cases. Justice Prathiba Singh later added that, there is an increase in number of Summary Judgments in Indian Courts lately and also how Indian Courts have decided in favor of granting injuction costs to the winning parties.
After all the sessions halted, Hon’ble Justice Prathiba M. Singh, Judge, Delhi High Court made a Special Address “India’s Evolving IP Jurisprudence- Indigenous, Ingenious or Both?” She emphasized on how India has seen developments in the Intellectual Property cases through path-based approaches which can be segregated into four segments; Path 1 dealing with trans-border reputation of a mark and domain name disputes; Path 2 focusing on Trademarks and Copyrights era; Path 3 focusing on Patents era and Path 4 dealing with Copyrights and Fair use and Pharma patents, stressing on Novartis Case and the Delhi University case respectively.
July 2nd, 2017, Session I and II:
On July 2nd, the sessions started with the topic- IP and Competition Law in India: Regulatory and Judicial Interventions. As a Moderator, Mr. Augustine Peter, Hon’ble Member, Competition Commission of India was present and five distinguished panelists namely- Ms. Geeta Gouri, Former Member, Competition Commission of India Mr. Anand Pathak, Partner, P&A Law Offices, New Delhi, Mr. Prashant Reddy, Yong Pung How Research Associate, ARCIALA, Singapore Management University presented their cases. The session ended with a good interaction on anti-competition and its effects on IP in India.
The topic for the final session was Standard-Essential Patents: Adjudicating FRAND in India from a Comparative Perspective Moderator- Prof. (Dr.) T. Ramakrishna, Chair Professor (IPR), NLSIU, Bangalore, Prof. Jay P. Kesan, Director, Program in Intellectual Property and Technology Law, University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign, Prof. Jorge Contreras, Associate Professor, The University of Utah, Mr. Rajiv Kr. Choudhry, Co-Founder RHA Legal, Adv. J. Sai Deepak, Chambers of J. Sai Deepak. The panel discussed the nuances in Licensor and Licensee agreements such as the duty to negotiate in good faith and to determine reasonable royalty fee. The panel also discussed the most controversial topics such as Unwired Planet v. Huawei case and having transparency between the Patent Licensor and the Licensee on data sharing. Furthermore, Mr. Sai Deepak made interesting remarks on demonstrating claims stating that, what is supposed to be a damage based claim by the parties have turned out to be a money recovery claim lately. The main focus should be protecting one’s Intellectual property by seeking recovery for IP damage and not focusing on the monetary damage.
The Conference ended with a good interaction with the audience and later that evening a VI Annual IP Teaching/Research Workshop- 2017 on IP Remedies was arranged at and by National Law School of India University, Bangalore, co-hosted by Centre for Intellectual Property Rights & Advocacy (CIPRA).
