In Conversation With Daksh Kumar, Partner, Kochhar & Co

How and when did you know becoming a lawyer was your life’s true calling?

For me honestly, intellectual property was more attractive than being a legal practitioner initially; but involvement in litigation cases early on in my career helped me decide with conviction that this was the path for me.

Would you please tell us about your specialisation and the array of work you handle at your firm?

I specialize in intellectual property rights (inter alia Trade marks, Designs, Copyright, GI, Trade secrets, domain names) and related IT issues such as data protection, privacy and head the IP vertical at Kochhar & Co.’s New Delhi office.  My team is involved in prosecution, litigation, transactional and advisory matters.

What are your predictions for 2022 in the area/s of specialisation mentioned above? What are some of the upcoming trends of the industry?  

While crypto-currency and Artificial Intelligence have been hogging the limelight for the last couple of years, I feel two significant areas which will generate a lot of IP protection and enforcement actions over the next 12 to 24 months will probably be the advent of Satellite Broadband and 5G. The market (consumer base) in India for both is huge and there are bound to be legal ramifications in terms of software or other technological upgrades that come along.

One recent landmark judgment or the best judgment of 2021 that you’d like to share a word about. 

US Supreme Court recently laid down a heavyweight precedent and granted a favourable order to Google in the case of Google v. Oracle America (593 U.S. Supreme Court ____ [2021] Docket No. 18-956). This will have material impact on the future of software development and many (software) experts believe that companies will have a strong incentive to acquire patents, and that’s going to slow development and substantially increase costs for software programmers and developers.

As a new age lawyer, what to your mind is the one thing in the current legal ecosystem at the Bar, Bench, or in the Law Firms that needs our attention.

One glaring fact that the Covid period has exposed and reiterated is that the bandwidth of our judiciary is much weaker in comparison to the volume of fresh cases being filed as well as the huge backlog that plagues the system. We do not have any shortage of bright minds and hard-working individuals in our country, significantly more of them need to be made part of our Courts and Tribunals. 

Many Congratulations on joining the BW Legal World Elite 40 Under 40 Club of Achievers 2021. What to your mind has helped you get to where you are and what advice would you have for others who want to set off in a similar direction? 

Thank you for the honour of inclusion in the 40 under 40 list for 2021. There are many stereotypical responses that come to mind but I want to address my reply to the ones who do not have any godfather in the legal sphere. There were phases in my career where I have actually slept at office and kept a toothbrush and change of clothes in my drawers, so commitment and not caring about negative opinions was crucial, there will always be detractors and critics of your ways. I always tried to learn from and value the advice and feedback of my seniors and mentors like Mr Rohit Kochhar (Chairman and Managing Partner, Kochhar & Co.) and Mr Rajendra Kumar (K&S Partners) whilst trying to carve a niche for myself and develop my own skillset. I guess, in an ultra-competitive field like legal practice, you need to learn very quickly a few things in particular: flexibility/adaptability, respecting others’ opinions, to be a decent listener and formulate your own opinion with what appears reasonable and logical to you.

As a final note, would you please recommend to our readers your favourite book that left a lasting impression on you.

I have had a natural proclivity since college days towards philosophical works, especially of Friedrich Nietzsche. However, to name a single book that I enjoyed reading long back, it probably was ‘Catcher in the rye’ by JD Salinger.