Intellectual Property Rights Cell
Faculty Coordinator – Ms. Suvarna Shailesh Nilakh
The Intellectual Property Rights Cell (IPR Cell) was founded in the year 2013. It was founded with the aim of fuelling informed discussions among students and faculty members on the emerging law of intellectual property.
Today in 2016, the Cell has transcended its humble boundaries. It has evolved into a forum for highly interactive deliberation and exchange of ideas on inter-disciplinary aspects of intellectual property law and practice. This difficult feat has been accomplished by the Cell for three main reasons: (i) the generous amount of creative freedom allowed to the Cell’s student coordinators and volunteers by faculty and (ii) the untiring efforts of every single student coordinator and volunteer who has worked with and for the IP Cell.
This year, the IP Cell has been able to function regularly and with utmost commitment due the efforts of the Student Core team consisting of Yojit Pareek, IV BSL LLB, Ritvik Kulkarni IV BSL LLB, Kamlesh Mali V BSL LLB, Aishwarya Bedekar IV BSL LLB and volunteers which include Chaitanya Reddy II BSL LLB, Umang Kapoor II BSL LLB, Pranita II BSL LLB, Tvishi Pant II BSL LLB, Medha Rao, IV BSL LLB, Ayush Abhinav II BSL LLB, Sairuchita Chaudhary IV BSL LLB, Shantanu Jadhav IV BSL LLB, Kruti Gogri IV BSL LLB. Anand Mohan III LLB, Devyani Nath V BSL and Sonali Bhardwaj V BSL LLB who are final year students have also guided and helped the IPR Cell students.
Weekly Sessions
The major chunk of activities conducted by the IP Cell consists of weekly sessions conducted by students. The subject matter of these sessions broadly includes the basic understanding of intellectual property jurisprudence, emerging socio-legal and economic aspects of IP and practical aspects of the same. Below here is a brief tabular account of some of this year’s weekly sessions:
| Sr. no | Title | Presenter’s | Gist of the Session |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Introductory Session | Ritvik M. Kulkarni | Origin and development of IP laws |
| 2 | Back to Basics: Understanding Copyright Law | Ritvik M. Kulkarni and Aishwarya Bedekar | Basic concept of copyright law and important sections from the Copyright Act, 1957 were discussed |
| 3 | Back to Basics: Understanding Trademark Law | Kamlesh Mali, V BSL LLB and Tanisha Bhatia, IV BSL LLB | Basic concept of trademark laws, types of trademarks and classification of trademarks was discussed. |
| 4 | Back to Basics: Understanding Patent Law | Anand Mohan, III LLB and Medha Rao, IV BSL LLB | Concept of patent laws, its evolution in India and important sections of Patent Act, 1970 were discussed. |
| 5 | Civil Remedies in IP Infringement | Devyani Nath, V BSL LLB | Civil remedies under various Indian legislations for IPR were discussed. |
| 6 | Criminal Remedies in Copyright Infringement | Akhilesh Jaiswal, IV BSL LLB | Criminal remedies under various acts were discussed. |
| 7 | Intellectual Property Rights of a Tattoo Artist | Chaitanya Reddy, II BSL LLB | Discussion on whether tattoo artists are entitled to protect their intellectual property under the Indian legislation. |
| 8 | Tickling the Judicial Funny-bone: Copyright And Parodies | Ritvik M. Kulkarni, IV BSL LLB | Basics of parodies and their current status in India was discussed. |
| 9 | Practical Aspects of Trademark Registration | H. B. Keshava, LLM | Exercises were conducted to learn how to write trademark description, indentify the right class of trademark and general aspects of trademark registration. |
| 10 | An Introduction Kopimism: The Religion of Copying | Ritvik Kulkarni, IV BSL LLB. | Interactive discussion on views related to Kopimism. |
| 11 | IP Quiz (in collaboration with the ILS Quiz Cell) | Quizmaster Omkar Dhakephalkar, V BSL LLB | IP Trivia |
Guest Lectures:
The IP Cell also organised three guest-lectures this year. They were as follows:
| Sr. no | Title | Resource Person | Gist of the Session |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Media and Intellectual Property Law | Mr. Dominic D’souza, VP-Legal, Zee Entertainment Ltd. (Student Presenters: Aishwarya Bedekar IV BSL LLB, Ritvik Kulkarni IV BSL LLB, Yojit Pareek IV BSL LLB, Devyani Nath V BSL LLB, Sonali Bhardwaj V BSL LLB |
The intersection of media and intellectual property rights was discussed. Student presenters were allotted various case laws to present that were related ti media and IPR. |
| 2 | European Laws: Discussion on Intersection of Competition Law and Intellectual Property Laws | Olivia Ballack | An intensive session on understanding protection of IPR under the European laws and its intersection with competition law. |
| 3 | Demystifying the Post College LLM Options | Jasmine Latkar, LLM, UCLA Berkeley | Session covered various aspects of LLM, procedure for application, its impact on career, etc. |
Intellectual Property Week, Feb 1-6, 2016
The idea of IP Week was conceived last year to encourage students to participate in various activities conducted over the week through which they could learn more about intellectual property laws. Therefore, last year the cell organised its first IP WEEK with guest lectures conducted everyday panning over a week. Resource persons included Mr. Abhishek Sahay, Mr. Ameya Kunte, Ms. Anushree Rauta, Dr. Mohan Dewan, Mr. Ashutosh Kane and Mr. Dominic D’souza.
However this year, the cell brought an innovative change in the IP week format. The IP Week was a combination of various activities spread over a period of four days and a National Seminar held on the last two days of the week. The activities held during the week included:
- Parliamentary Debate: An Asian style Parliamentary debate was held on 1st Feb in collaboration with the Debating Society (DEBSOC). Out of the 6 teams that participated, Ziauddin, Alifiyah and Saurav Roy of II BSL LLB won the final round of the debate. The teams debated over interesting motions such as…
- IP Quiz: The IP Quiz was held on 2nd Feb in collaboration with the ILS Quiz Club. Quizmaster Omkar Dhakephalkar’s questions over IP trivia were surely a brain teaser for everyone present for the activity. Mohit Talvar and Indraneel Gavade won the IP Quiz.
- Extempore Moot Court: The Extempore Moot Court preliminary round was held on 29th Jan and the final round was held on the 3rd Feb. The cases for the prelim and final rounds were based on trademark and copyright law respectively. The final round was judged by Dr. Deepa Paturkar Maam and Ms. Shraddha Damle, head of the IP Department at Legasis,Pune. Dipanwita Ghosh, student of IV BSL LLB, won the final round of the moot court.
- Session on Drafting Patent Documents: The fourth day of the week was dedicated to a session on patent drafting. Ms. Sangeeta Telang, URIDPP conducted the session.
- National Seminar on ‘Current Issues in Intellectual Property Rights in India’: 5-6 February 2016.