Delhi Is Turning Out To Be An Excellent Intellectual Property Jurisdiction, Says Pravin Anand, Managing Partner, Anand And Anand

The Intellectual Property Rights law has undergone immense progress in the country. The High Courts have acted as flag bearers of protecting intellectual property rights.

Speaking at the Indo American Chamber of Commerce's event, Pravin Anand, Managing Partner, Anand And Anand said, "Delhi High Court has turned out to be an excellent intellectual property jurisdiction. It has become an ecosystem which is protecting innovation in a big way. Great orders and judgment are being passed each and every day which are putting us on the world map."

India is turning out to be one of the most sought after destinations for dispute resolution in the world in the context of patents. Many changes have come about due to the Commercial Courts Act and High Court rules.

"Litigation now proceeds very rapidly. Remedies are so unusual nowadays. There are protem orders, ante injunction and other roving orders which are very progressive. Reliefs extend beyond the CPC. Delhi HC recently passed the tree order, wherein the defendants were directed to plant 140,000 trees in the ridge area of Delhi and the benefit of that would go to the plaintiff. So it was a win win situation. In 2004-2005, damages were unheard of. Now, even compensatory and aggravated damages are granted. Damages are collected effectively. The atmosphere is fantastic," Anand added.

Dr. Deepa Tiku, Partner, K&S Partners, Intellectual Property Attorneys echoed Anand and said that India had made a lot of strides in the area of IPR.

"When I was a researcher, I filed patents for my own inventions. I could only file process patents. But from then to now, we have made great progress. The judiciary has played an excellent role. Patents is a complex domain. It is a monopoly. It is a negative right. It becomes a very touchy issue. There are a lot of exceptions in the Patent Act, particularly in the healthcare and agriculture space. We have had our law change in 2005. Over the years, local Indian companies are investing a lot in the innovation space," Tiku added.

Policy initiatives like Atal Innovation Initiative, National Innovation Policy, 5th National Science and Innovation Policy are bringing positive change. Some of these initiatives have also led to an open minded approach of the government to look at legislative changes as well. This gives confidence to the stakeholders. The domestic sector filing has also increased. It is about 44 per cent. Some companies are filing patents abroad. On 26 January, PM announced that we had granted 75k patents in the last one year.

Pravin Anand highlighted that in relative terms, India was the 7th largest filer in the world but in absolute terms, India's filing was about 90,000 last year as compared to more than a million applications in China.

"Lot of people say that the quality of Chinese applications is not so good. Lot of people also argue that quantity trumps quality because quality can only be tested when there is an opposition or litigation. But when an investor sees the numbers, the sentiment is that the patents are protected in this country," Anand said.

Madhu Chaudhary Gadodia, Deputy Managing Partner, Naik Naik & Company said, "We have seen issues and concerns relating to AI. We all know about the hue and cry on the deepfake of Rashmika Mandanna. It has become very easy with AI to morph a woman's face. The real question is to what extent we can seek protection. The other aspect is sometimes it becomes difficult to know the creator. Multiple questions arise on the authorship. We cannot let a machine claim authorship. There are a lot of grey areas as to who can claim authorship."