Patents Act, 1970 or Competition Act, 2002: SC to decide applicability on actions of patentee

Background

The Supreme Court (“SC”) issued a notice[i] on a special leave petition filed by the Competition Commission of India (“CCI”) on March 1, 2024, against a Division Bench order of the Delhi High Court (“Delhi HC”) passed on July 13, 2023. The impugned order dealt with four appeals and a writ petition filed by Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson (“Ericsson”), CCI, and Monsanto Holdings (P.) Ltd. (“Monsanto”) against previous Delhi HC judgements in Ericsson AB v. CCI (March 30, 2016)[ii], Ericsson AB v. CCI (December 14, 2015)[iii], Monsanto Holdings (P) Ltd. v. CCI (May 20, 2020)[iv], and letters issued by the CCI against Ericsson on July 16, 2015, and August 8, 2015.Continue Reading Patents Act, 1970 or Competition Act, 2002: SC to decide applicability on actions of patentee

MHC recommends whittling down of claims to overcome refusal of patent application due to lack of inventive step

Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC’s (hereinafter “Microsoft”) appeal against an order dated September 29, 2020, by which its Indian Patent Application No. 1783/CHENP/2012, was refused by the Controller of Patents as being obvious and lacking inventive step has been allowed by the Madras High Court (hereinafter “MHC”). The MHC directed narrowing of claims to clearly define the inventive feature and overcome refusal of Patent application due to lack of inventive step.Continue Reading MHC recommends whittling down of claims to overcome refusal of patent application due to lack of inventive step

 LEGAL PROTECTION OF SOFTWARE IN INDIA

Introduction

As businesses strive to shift from paper to digital, there is an increasing penetration of software products across industries. This is particularly true in India. The NASSCOM Report evinces that the software products market was the fastest-growing segment amongst all IT services in India in FY2019.[1] While the making of software requires a considerable amount of human, technical, and financial resources; it can be copied within seconds, at infinitesimal cost. Thus, there is a need to protect software with the strongest available intellectual property protections. In India, the intellectual property regime provides a number of tools to protect such innovations. These include, patents and copyright. Each of these tools have their own set of peculiarities and will be discussed vis-à-vis protection of software, within the framework of cross-jurisdictional analysis.
Continue Reading Grooming the Law with Technology: Legal Protection of Software in India