The Delhi High Court hosted the International Judicial Conclave on Intellectual Property Rights at the auditorium and judges’ lounge, S Block on March 16 to March 17, 2024.
The event organised was being co-hosted by Delhi Judicial Academy, the United States Patent and Trademark Office and the United States Department of Justice.
The said event had sessions on various topics which includes like protecting and enforcing intellectual property in new digital ecosystems, navigating standard essential patient, SEP litigation, cross border intellectual property enforcement and criminal remedies, addressing digital piracy, online counterfeiting and trade secrets and breach of confidentiality and current issues in industrial designs.
The following are the panelists for the sessions on March 15:
The Hon’ble Ms Justice Hima Kohli, Supreme Court of India
The Hon’ble Mr. Justice Yashwant Varma, High Court of Delhi The Hon’ble Mr. Justice Muhamed Mustaque, Kerala High Court
The Hon’ble Mr. K.M. Kamrul Kadar, Judge, High Court Division of Supreme Court of Bangladesh
The Hon’ble Ms Amali Ishanthi Kumar Ranaweera, Judge, Civil Appeal, High Court, Sri Lanka
The Ms Kiyo A Matsumoto, District Judge US District Court for the Eastern District of New York
The Hon’ble Mr Justice K.V. Viswanathan, Judge, Supreme Court of India
The Hon’ble Mr. Justice Anish Dayal, Judge, Delhi High Court
The Hon’ble Ms. Naima Haider, Judge, High Court Division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh
The Ms Virginia Maria Covington, Senior District Judge, US District Court for the Middle
District of Florida
Mr. Shanaka Harshan Kekunawela Pathiranga, Additional Magistrate, Chief Magistrate’s Court, Sri Lanka
Mr. Amit Sibal, Senior Advocate
The Hon’ble Mr. Justice C. Hari Shankar, Judge, Delhi High Court
The Hon’ble Mr. Jagath Ariyakaruna Kahadagamage, Judge, Commercial High Court, Sri Lanka
Ms Virginia Maria Covington, Senior District Judge, US District Court for the Middle District of Florida
Ms Kiyo A Matsumoto, District Judge, US District Court for the Eastern District of New York
Mr. Ashok Kumar Chhetri, Joint Secretary, Judicial Council Secretariat, Government of Nepal
Hon’ble Mr. Justice Chandra Dhari Singh, Judge, Delhi High Court
Honble Mr. Kumar Regmi, Justice , Supreme Court of Nepal
Mr Michael Frank, Magistrate Judge US District Court for the Northern District of Florida
Mr. Sandum Shyam Kumar Withana, District Judge, District Court, Sri Lanka
Mr. Dayan Krishnan, Senior Advocate
The James S. Yoon, International Computer Hacking and IP (ICHIP) Attorney Advisor for Asia, U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Consulate General for Hong Kong & Macau
The sessions were moderated by Shwetasree Majumder, Pravin Anand, Adarsh Ramanujan and Saif Khan.
The key points from the sessions were that copyright and patent laws across jurisdictions will have to evolve to reflect development in technology, which includes the rise of AI-assisted inventions and AI-generated content.
Further, there was consensus amongst the panellists that courts in a single jurisdiction should avoid setting a global FRAND rate for a given SEP.
It was also discussed that the question as to whether personality or publicity rights should be considered an independent proprietary right or it should fall under the purview of privacy law is a subject of ongoing debate.
The panelists for the sessions on March 16 were:
The Hon’ble Mr Justice Manmohan, Acting Chief Justice, High Court of Delhi
The Hon’ble Mr. Justice Rajiv Shakdher, Judge, High Court of Delhi
The Hon’ble Mr. Justice S. Ravindra Bhat, Judge (Retd.) Supreme Court of India
The Honble Mr. Brajesh Pyakurel, Judge, High Court of Patan, Nepal
The Hon’ble Mr. Jeyaramam Trotsky, Judge, Colombo High Court, Sri Lanka
The Ms Kiyo A Matsumoto, District Judge US District Court for te Eastern District of New York
The Hon’ble Ms Justice Moushumi Bhattacharya, Judge, Calcutta High Court
The Hon’ble Mr Koruwage Priyantha Fernando, Judge, Commercial High Court, Sri Lanka
Mr. Michael Frank, Magistrate Judge, US District Court for the Northern District of Florida
Prof. (Dr.) Pushpa Kumar Lakshmanan, Law Centre-1, Faculty of Law, University of Delhi
Prof. Yogesh Pai, National Law University (Delhi)
The Hon’ble Mr. Justice Vipin Sanghi, Chief Justice (Retd.), Nainital High Court
The Hon’ble Mr. Justice Manmohan Singh Judge (Retd.), Delhi High Court
Ms Virginia Maria Covington, Senior District Judge, US District Court for the Middle District of Florida
Mr. Habakala Kankanamage Naleen Prasanna Alwis, Chief Magistrate, Chief Magistrate’s Court, Sri Lanka
Mr. Abhimanyu Bhandari, Advocate
The sessions were being moderated by Swathi Sukumar, J. Sai Deepak and Hemant Singh.
The panelists discussed that restrictions and the limitations on Intermediary liability is an important facet while dealing with digital piracy and that Indian.
The courts have passed seminal decisions exploring the scope of intermediary liability, which includes the case of MySpace and Google v. DRS.
Therefore, the penallists discussed the Indian Law Commission Report which pertains to the trade secrets. Thus, the lacuna of the current regime was considered in the light of the Report, and it was acknowledged that the same have been addressed by the Report to some degree.
Further, it was also discussed that in the US overlaps are quite common but unlike in India, in the US, design law does not take away someone’s right to also claim IP rights other than that under the Designs Act.