SpicyIP — Legal News | LawScroll Pulse

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SpicyIP 2d ago · 1 min read

Intellectual Property Criminal Law

Taping the Pipe: NPPA’s Trade Margin Cap on Anti-Cancer Drugs

Suppose there is a leak in your water supply pipe, and instead of replacing the pipe, you keep wrapping tape around the crack. The drip stops, for now but the pipe is still cracked, and you have only deferred the day it bursts. Policy-making on affordable medicines in India more or less follows the same approach, and the recent National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority’s (NPPA) Trade Margin Rationalisation (TMR) order for anti-cancer drugs is its latest example. In this post, I […]

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SpicyIP 3d ago · 1 min read

Intellectual Property Technology, AI & Data Privacy

India’s Intellectual Property Policy Needs Evidence, Not Faith

Views expressed in this piece and in the TIF piece are author’s own. Vanakam readers! I have written a longish piece for the India Forum (TIF) on why we need more evidence to justify the current subject matter expansion that is taking place across various domains (from GUIs to GenAI to data exclusivities) and not simply operate on faith. This lament is not new; previously, Prof. Basheer and Swaraj, in many different words, brought up the same concern. The context […]

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SpicyIP 4d ago · 1 min read

Intellectual Property Technology, AI & Data Privacy

Call for Submissions: Brands at the Edge of Intelligence: Trademarks, Technology, and Trust in the AI Economy (Abstract Submission by November 20, 2026)

The DPIIT–IPR Chair, National University of Study and Research in Law (NUSRL), Ranchi, invites original and unpublished research contributions examining the evolving relationship between Artificial Intelligence, trademarks, technology, brands, and consumer trust. The last date of abstract submission is November 20, 2026. For more details, check the call for submissions below:- Call for Submissions: Brands at the Edge of Intelligence: Trademarks, Technology, and Trust in the AI Economy The DPIIT–IPR Chair, National University of Study and Research in Law (NUSRL), […]

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SpicyIP 6d ago · 1 min read

Supreme Court Intellectual Property

India’s ABS Blind Spot: Conceptualising the Monitoring of Animal Genetic Resource Utilization under the ABS Framework

Unlike plant genetic resources, animal genetic resources have historically moved across borders through centuries of livestock exchange, breeding and interbreeding, making their origins and subsequent utilisation particularly difficult to trace. In this post, Achyuth examines India’s blind spots in monitoring their utilisation under the Access and Benefit-Sharing (ABS) framework and explores how inter-institutional coordination could help address them. Achyuth B. Nandan is a PhD candidate at Rajiv Gandhi School of Intellectual Property Law, IIT Kharagpur, specialising in intellectual property law. […]

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SpicyIP 02 Nov 2026 · 1 min read

Supreme Court Intellectual Property

SpicyIP Weekly Review (October 26-November 1)

Announcing the 2026 Shamnad Basheer Essay Competition, a post on the ongoing Cadila-Hetero biosimilar dispute ahead of the Supreme Court hearing, and posts on the Indian Designs Office’s draft GUI Guidelines and the Trade Marks Registry’s proposed framework for the use of AI in proceedings. This and much more in this week’s SpicyIP Weekly Review. Anything we are missing out on? Drop a comment and let us know. Highlights of the Week Announcing the 2026 Shamnad Basheer Essay Competition on […]

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SpicyIP 02 Nov 2026 · 1 min read

Supreme Court Intellectual Property

SpicyIP Bells & Whistles: IP Events and Opportunities (02.11.2026)

Welcome back to another week of Bells & Whistles. As always, we’ve rounded up a mix of developments, opportunities, and thoughtful reads from across the IP world along with a Bell of the Week that’s well worth revisiting. Bell of the Week: Who Gets Counted as an Inventor? When we think about the history of invention, we often think of the people whose names have become synonymous with a particular discovery or technology. But how much of this history do […]

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SpicyIP 31 Oct 2026 · 1 min read

Supreme Court High Courts

Letting the Plaintiff Examine Regulator’s Approvals: Unpacking the DHC’s Cadila-Hetero Discovery Order Ahead of the SC Hearing

[Thanks to Swaraj Barooah sharing an in-progress draft from a project he is working on examining cancer litigation in India. The questions in there led me to write this post.] Can a court say a company has no right to confidentiality in its regulatory data, and then hand that data to a rival’s expert in a sealed cover? The Delhi High Court decided it can. On 3 November 2026, the Supreme Court is scheduled to take up two Special Leave […]

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SpicyIP 30 Oct 2026 · 1 min read

Intellectual Property Criminal Law

Announcing the 2026 Shamnad Basheer Essay Competition on Intellectual Property Law

Celebrating the 50th birth anniversary of Prof. Basheer, earlier this year, we had promised to return with the 2026 edition of the Shamnad Basheer Essay Competition on Intellectual Property Law. And we are now delighted to announce the launch of this year’s competition! A master with the pen, Prof. Basheer continues to inspire us with his ability to make complex legal ideas accessible to a wider audience. Our long-time readers, and the many others who have engaged with his work, […]

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SpicyIP 30 Oct 2026 · 1 min read

Intellectual Property Regulatory & Public Policy

Draft Trade Marks Manual 2026: Gaps DPIIT Must Address Before It Goes Final

On August 21, 2026, the Department for Promotion of Industry and Trade (DPIIT) published a Draft Manual on Trade Marks: Practice & Procedure 2026 (Draft Manual) in the Gazette of India, inviting public comments within fifteen days. Running over two hundred pages, the Draft Manual is meant to be the operational rulebook for examiners and registrars and a guide for prospective applicants of a mark. The Draft Manual is an updated version of the 2015 Manual. It has added a […]

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SpicyIP 30 Oct 2026 · 1 min read

Intellectual Property Criminal Law

[Part I] RAM, Routine, and Rights: Looking at the IP Chapter in the EU-India Draft FTA

The Draft India-EU FTA, dubbed the “mother of all deals”, includes a Chapter on Intellectual Property (IP) (Chapter 10), which has sparked concern about outlawing activities that Indian law allows for, such as Digital Archiving or creating temporary copies in RAM while routing web data. While India has not yet published the draft, the EU made it available on 15th September. Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal recently reiterated that the FTA remains on track for finalisation by December 2026, with formal […]

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SpicyIP 30 Oct 2026 · 1 min read

Intellectual Property Employment & Labour

Can an Animation Be a Design? Examining India’s Draft GUI and Icon Design Guidelines, 2026

The Indian Designs Office’s draft GUI Guidelines mark an important step following the Calcutta High Court’s decision in NEC Corporation v. Controller of Patents on the registrability of GUIs. Harshita Bhola writes on the Guidelines, noting that while they are a welcome improvement that could bring greater consistency and predictability to examination practices, the proposed requirement to submit separate representations of individual frames risks overlooking the creative contribution underlying an animation. Harshita Bhola is a 7th-semester B.A. LL.B. (Hons.) student […]

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SpicyIP 29 Oct 2026 · 1 min read

Intellectual Property Technology, AI & Data Privacy

A Fake Judgment, an AI-Designed Mark and a Missing Declaration: What Do the TMR’s Draft AI Guidelines Actually Regulate?

The draft Guidelines on the Use of Artificial Intelligence in Proceedings before the Trade Marks Registry seek to address the growing concerns around AI-generated fabricated citations and misleading evidence. However, as explained by Kaustub Boidi, the proposed framework leaves important questions unanswered about the Registry’s own verification responsibilities, the treatment of legitimate AI-assisted translations, and whether the prescribed consequences are proportionate to different forms of non-compliance. Kaustub is a final-year law student at SVKM’s NMIMS, Hyderabad. His interests lie in […]

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SpicyIP 29 Oct 2026 · 1 min read

High Courts Technology, AI & Data Privacy

Hidden AI Prompts in Petitions: Why Indian Courts Should Take This Up Suo Motu

As courts increasingly turn to AI tools for legal research and document processing, could hidden instructions embedded in pleadings manipulate the outputs they rely on? In this post, Rohit Pradhan examines the threat of prompt injection in judicial proceedings, distinguishes it from AI hallucinations, and proposes safeguards for e-filing systems and legal accountability in India. Rohit Pradhan is an IP litigator based in Delhi, practising before the Delhi High Court. Hidden AI Prompts in Petitions: Why Indian Courts Should Take […]

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SpicyIP 28 Oct 2026 · 1 min read

High Courts Intellectual Property

Can You Trademark Your Way Out of Bad PR? Delhi HC Fines Niva Bupa Re. 1 for Trying

Recently, the Delhi High Court, in Niva Bupa v. Vishal Rattewal imposed Re. 1 in notional costs after finding the plaintiffs’ suit to be a “misuse” of the IPD’s special jurisdiction. In this post, Aryan Agrawal examines whether the failure of a trademark infringement claim is sufficient to constitute such misuse, and whether the Court adequately considered the IPD Rules’ express inclusion of disparagement within its remit. Aryan is an advocate practising before the Delhi High Court and an Associate […]

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SpicyIP 26 Oct 2026 · 1 min read

High Courts Intellectual Property

SpicyIP Weekly Review (October 19-October 25)

A quick tidbit on the free online version of Feroz Ali’s treatise on patent law, interesting orders from various High Courts, and exciting national and international IP developments in this week’s SpicyIP Weekly Review. Anything we’ve missed? Drop a comment and let us know! Highlights of the Week SpicyIP Tidbit: Ali on Patents – A Treatise Built for Reading, Citing and Keeping Up Patent research often means working through lengthy judgments to find the reasoning that matters. Prof. Feroz Ali’s […]

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SpicyIP 25 Oct 2026 · 1 min read

Intellectual Property Criminal Law

SpicyIP Bells & Whistles: IP Events and Opportunities (26.10.2026)

Welcome back to another week of Bells & Whistles. As always, we’ve rounded up a mix of developments, opportunities, and thoughtful reads from across the IP world along with a Bell of the Week that’s well worth revisiting. Bell of the Week: Copyright at 50 – Can the Law Keep Up? Copyright law has always had to contend with a rather difficult question: how do you make rules for creative works when the ways we create, share and use them […]

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SpicyIP 19 Oct 2026 · 1 min read

High Courts Intellectual Property

SpicyIP Weekly Review (October 12-October 18)

[This Weekly Review is drafted by Kaustub Biodi. Kaustub is a final-year law student at SVKM’s NMIMS, Hyderabad.] Here’s this week’s roundup of IP developments, from posts on the Kerala High Court’s Ribociclib decision under Section 100 of the Patents Act, the Delhi HC’s tiered approach to patent appeals in Esteve Pharmaceuticals, the PABS Annex of the WHO Pandemic Agreement, to key judicial decisions and national and international IP updates. Anything we missed out on? Drop a comment below to […]

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SpicyIP 19 Oct 2026 · 1 min read

Intellectual Property Criminal Law

SpicyIP Tidbit: Ali on Patents – A Treatise Built for Reading, Citing and Keeping Up

Prof. Feroz Ali has launched Ali on Patents (www.aop.onl), a free, online version of the treatise he first published in 2007. In his launch note on linkedin, he says that everything on the site is either his own words or the words of the court, with no AI-written prose in between. The resource is meant for a wide readership: patent lawyers and agents, in-house counsel, examiners, judges, academics, students and inventors, among others. The site has two kinds of pages: […]

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SpicyIP 17 Oct 2026 · 1 min read

Criminal Law Technology, AI & Data Privacy

Equitable Pandemic Response: Delink Data Access from Benefit Sharing in the PABS Annex

Long Post Ahead! In May 2025, the World Health Organization’s member states adopted the Pandemic Agreement. However, until its Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing (PABS) Annex is adopted, it cannot be opened for signature. Currently, the talks on the annex remain stuck on one question: should benefit sharing be tied to access to pathogen data? In this post, I argue that this linkage is itself the problem. Drawing on the model proposed by Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) before the Intergovernmental Working […]

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SpicyIP 16 Oct 2026 · 1 min read

Intellectual Property Criminal Law

Call for Submisisons: Journal of Intellectual Property Laws(JIPL), Volume X (Deadline: 30 November 2026)

The Centre for Intellectual Property Rights (CIPR), Institute of Law, Nirma University is inviting submissions for the Journal of Intellectual Property Laws(JIPL), Volume X. The last date for submission is 30 November. For more details, read the call for submissions below:- Call for Submissions: Journal of Intellectual Property Laws(JIPL), Volume X (Deadline: 30 November 2026) About the Organizer Founded in 2007 under the vision of Dr Karsanbhai K. Patel, the Institute of Law, Nirma University seeks to bring newer dimensions […]

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