Delhi High Court Hosts International Judicial Conclave On Intellectual Property Rights

The Delhi High Court hosted the International Judicial Conclave on Intellectual Property Rights on March 16-17 at the auditorium and judges' lounge, S Block.

The event was cohosted by Delhi Judicial Academy, United States Patent and Trademark Office and United States Department of Justice.

The conclave, running into two days, had sessions on various topics 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 secretes and breach of confidentiality and current issues in industrial designs.

The panelists for the sessions on March 16 were:

- Hon'ble Ms Justice Hima Kohli, Supreme Court of India

- Hon'ble Mr. Justice Yashwant Varma, High Court of Delhi

- Hon'ble Mr. Justice Muhamed Mustaque, Kerala High Court

- Hon'ble Mr. K.M. Kamrul Kadar, Judge, High Court Division of Supreme Court of Bangladesh

- Hon'ble Ms Amali Ishanthi Kumar Ranaweera, Judge, Civil Appeal, High Court, Sri Lanka

- Ms Kiyo A Matsumoto, District Judge US District Court for the Eastern District of New York

- Hon'ble Mr Justice K.V. Viswanathan, Judge, Supreme Court of India

- Hon'ble Mr. Justice Anish Dayal, Judge, Delhi High Court

- Hon'ble Ms. Naima Haider, Judge, High Court Division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh

- 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

- Hon'ble Mr. Justice C. Hari Shankar, Judge, Delhi High Court

- 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

- ·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, including the rise of AI-assisted inventions and AI-generated content.

Further that 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 fall under the purview of privacy law is a subject of ongoing debate.

The panelists for the sessions on March 17 were:

- Hon'ble Mr Justice Manmohan, Acting Chief Justice, High Court of Delhi

- Hon'ble Mr. Justice Rajiv Shakdher, Judge, High Court of Delhi

- Hon'ble Mr. Justice S. Ravindra Bhat, Judge (Retd.) Supreme Court of India

- Honble Mr. Brajesh Pyakurel, Judge, High Court of Patan, Nepal

- ·Hon'ble Mr. Jeyaramam Trotsky, Judge, Colombo High Court, Sri Lanka

- Ms Kiyo A Matsumoto, District Judge US District Court for te Eastern District of New York

- Hon'ble Ms Justice Moushumi Bhattacharya, Judge, Calcutta High Court

- 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)

- Hon'ble Mr. Justice Vipin Sanghi, Chief Justice (Retd.), Nainital High Court

- 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 moderated by Swathi Sukumar, J. Sai Deepak and Hemant Singh.

The panelists discussed that restrictions and limitations on Intermediary liability is an important facet while dealing with digital piracy and that Indian

Courts have passed seminal decisions exploring the scope of intermediary liability, including in the case of MySpace and Google v. DRS.

The panellists discussed the Indian Law Commission Report pertaining to trade secrets. 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.

It was further 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.