Centre for Internet and Society

Patents and Mobile Devices in India: An Empirical Survey

rohini — 2017-03-29T04:03:03Z

Though India has the second-largest wireless subscriber base in the world, with more than 150 mobile device vendors, it has, until recently, remained relatively unaffected by the global smartphone wars. Over the past three years, however, a growing number of patent enforcement actions have been brought by multinational firms against domestic Indian producers. These actions, which have largely resulted in judgments favoring foreign patent holders, have given rise to a variety of proposals for addressing this situation.

In order to assess the potential impact of patents on the mobile device market in India, and to assist policy makers in formulating and implementing regulations affecting this market, we have conducted a comprehensive patent landscape analysis of the mobile device sector in India using public data relating to Indian patent ownership by technology type, nationality, and industry classification. Our results illuminate a number of important features of the Indian mobile device market, including the overwhelming prevalence of foreign patent holders, the rate at which foreign and domestic firms are obtaining patents, and how these patent holdings are likely to shape industrial dynamics in the Indian market for mobile devices, as well as the availability of low-cost mobile devices that can significantly enhance public health, agriculture, safety and economic development throughout India.

Download the full paper here

This paper was published by the Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law on February 9, 2017.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/patents-and-mobile-devices-in-india-an-empirical-survey

Patent Working Requirements and Complex Products: An Empirical Assessment of India's Form 27 Practice and Compliance

rohini — 2017-10-13T04:32:49Z

India requires every patentee to file an annual statement, also known as “Form 27”, describing the working of each of its issued Indian patents. If a patent is not locally worked within three years of its issuance, any person may request a compulsory license, and if the patent is not adequately worked within two years of the grant of such a compulsory license, it may be revoked. The research paper on Form 27 practices and compliance by patentees authored by Prof Jorge L. Contreras, University of Utah, and Rohini Lakshané, Centre for Internet and Society has been accepted for publication in the NYU Journal of Intellectual Property and Entertainment Law.

The research paper by Prof Jorge L. Contreras, University of Utah, and Rohini Lakshané, Centre for Internet and Society was published on SSRN on July 17, 2017. The paper has been accepted for publication in the NYU Journal of Intellectual Property and Entertainment Law.

The potency of India’s patent working requirement was demonstrated by the 2012 issuance of a compulsory license for Bayer’s patented drug Nexavar. In order to provide the public with information about patent working, India requires every patentee to file an annual statement on “Form 27” describing the working of each of its issued Indian patents.

We conducted the first comprehensive and systematic study of all Forms 27 filed with respect to a key industry sector: mobile devices. We obtained from public online records 4,916 valid Forms 27, corresponding to 3,126 mobile device patents. These represented only 20.1% of all Forms 27 that should have been filed and corresponded to only 72.5% of all mobile device patents for which Forms 27 should have been filed. Forms 27 were missing for almost all patentees, and even among Forms 27 that were obtained, almost none contained useful information regarding the working of the subject patents or fully complying with the informational requirements of the Indian Patent Rules. Patentees adopted drastically different positions regarding the definition of patent working, while several significant patentees claimed that they or their patent portfolios were simply too large to enable the reporting of required information. Many patentees simply omitted required descriptive information from their Forms without explanation.

The Indian government has made little or no effort to monitor or police compliance with Form 27 filings, undoubtedly leading to significant non-compliance. However, some of the complaints raised by patentees and industry observers may have merit. Namely, that patents covering complex, multi-component products that embody dozens of technical standards and thousands of patents are not necessarily amenable to the individual-level data requested by Form 27. We hope that this study will contribute to the ongoing conversation in India regarding the most appropriate means for collecting and disseminating information regarding the working of patents.

Download the Paper

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/patent-working-requirements-and-complex-products-an-empirical-assessment-of-indias-form-27-practice-and-compliance

Open Letter to Prime Minister Modi

rohini — 2016-02-14T04:39:01Z

After the government introduced the "Make in India" and "Digital India" programmes, the air is thick with the promise of reduced imports, new jobs, and goods for the domestic market. In light of the patent wars in India, the government can ill-afford to overlook the patent implications in indigenously manufactured mobile phones. CIS proposes that the Government of India initiate the formation of a patent pool of critical mobile technologies and a five percent compulsory license.

The blog post was re-published by Medianama on March 24, 2015.

Honourable Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi,

We at the Centre for Internet and Society support the "Make in India" and "Digital India" initiatives of the Indian government and share your vision of a digitally empowered India where “1.2 billion connected Indians drive innovation”, where “access to information knows no barriers”, and where knowledge is the citizens’ power. The government’s plan of incentivising the manufacturing of electronics hardware, including that of mobile phones in the 2015 Union Budget is equally encouraging. Towards this important goal of nation building, the Centre for Internet and Society is researching the patent and copyright implications of Internet-enabled mobile devices that are sold in the Indian market for Rs 6,000 or less.

Bolstered by Make in India, several mobile phone manufacturers have started or ramped up their manufacturing facilities in India. Homegrown brands — such as Spice, Maxx Mobile and Lava — and foreign manufacturers alike are making humongous investments in mobile phone plants. Chip manufacturer Mediatek; one of the newest entrants in the Indian smartphone market, Xiaomi; and telecom company Huawei, all different links in the mobile phone manufacturing chain, are setting up research and development units in India having recognised its potential as a significant market. These developments promise to cut or substitute imports, cater to the domestic market, create millions of jobs, and stem the outflow of money from India.

However, mobile phone manufacturers, big and small, have also been embroiled in litigation in India for the past few years over patents pertaining to crucial technologies. Micromax, one of the several Indian mobile phone manufacturers with original equipment manufacturers in China was ordered by the Delhi High Court late last year to pay a substantial 1.25 to 2 per cent of the selling price of its devices to Ericsson, which has claimed infringement of eight of its standard essential patents. Intex and Lava, two members of Micromax’s ilk, have been similarly sued and claim to have received the short end of the stick in the form of unreasonable and exorbitant compensations and royalty rates. Chinese budget phone manufacturers operating in India — Xiaomi, OnePlus, and Gionee — also have come under the sledgehammer of sudden suspension of the sale of their devices. The bigger companies such as Asus, Samsung and ZTE have faced the heat of patent litigation as well.

The fear of litigation over patent infringement could thwart local innovation. Additionally, the expenses incurred due to litigation and compensation could lead to the smaller manufacturers shutting shop or passing on their losses to their consumers, and in turn, driving the price points of Internet-enabled mobile devices out of the reach of many. It could also become a stumbling block to the success of ambitious plans of the government, such as the one to provide free WiFi in 2,500 cities and towns across India.

We propose that the Government of India initiate the formation of a patent pool of critical mobile technologies and mandate a five percent compulsory license. Such a pool would possibly avert patent disputes by ensuring that the owners' rights are not infringed on, that budget manufacturers are not put out of business owing to patent feuds, and that consumers continue to get access to inexpensive mobile devices. Several countries including the United States regularly issue compulsory licenses on patents in the pharmaceutical, medical, defence, software, and engineering domains for reasons of public policy, or to thwart or correct anti-competitive practices.[1] [2] Unfortunately, we did not receive a response from the previous government to our suggestion of establishing such a patent pool. We believe that our proposal falls in line with your ambitious programmes designed to work towards your vision of India, and we hope that you would consider it.

Yours truly,
Rohini Lakshané,
Programme Officer,
The Centre for Internet and Society

Copies to:

Shri Arun Jaitley, Minister for Finance
Shri Rajiv Mehrishi, Secretary to Ministry of Finance
Smt. Smriti Zubin Irani, Minister for Human Resource Development
Shri Satyanarayan Mohanty, Secretary to Ministry of Human Resources Development
Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman, Minister for Commerce and Industry
Shri Amitabh Kant, Secretary to Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion
Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister for Communication and Information Technology
Shri Rakesh Garg, Secretary to Department of Telecommunications
Shri R. S. Sharma, Secretary for Department of Electronics and Information Technology

Also read: FAQ: CIS' Proposal for Compulsory Licensing of Critical Mobile Technologies

[1]. James Love, Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) written comments and notice of intent to testify at the Special 301 Public Hearing, Page 6, "US use of compulsory licensing",http://keionline.org/sites/default/files/KEI_2014_Special301_7Feb20014_FRComments.pdf, February 7, 2014, Last accessed February 10, 2015.

[2]. Colleen Chien, Cheap Drugs at What Price to Innovation, Does the Compulsory Licensing of Pharmaceuticals Hurt Innovation, Berkeley Technology Law Journal, Volume 18, Issue 3, Article 3, Page 862, "Compulsory licensing in the United States", http://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1429&context=btlj, June 2003, Last accessed February 10, 2015.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/open-letter-to-prime-minister-modi

Methodology: Statements of Working (Form 27) of Indian Mobile Device Patents

rohini — 2017-09-10T15:19:51Z

In India, if a patent is not locally worked within three years of its issuance, any person may request a compulsory license, and if the patent is not adequately worked within two years of the grant of such a compulsory license, it may be revoked. In order to provide the public with information about patent working, India requires every patentee to file an annual statement on “Form 27” describing the working of each of its issued Indian patents. We conducted the first comprehensive and systematic study of all Forms 27 filed with respect to mobile devices. We tried to empirically establish the extent to which patentees and licensees comply with the statutory requirement to declare information about the working of their patents. Research assistance was provided by interns Anna Liz Thomas and Nayana Dasgupta.

The research paper on patent landscape, Patents and Mobile Devices in India: An Empirical Survey, [PDF] was published in the Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law (2017).

The research paper on "Patent Working Requirements and Complex Products: An Empirical Assessment of India's Form 27 Practice and Compliance" has been published here (July 2017).

The dataset of all the Form 27 studied for this paper has been published here.

Research Questions

How many annual Form 27 submissions have been made to the Indian Patent Office for 4,419 granted patents identified in the landscape of mobile device patents in India?
How many patents have no corresponding Form 27 filed yet?
How many Form 27 submissions from those found are defective?
Is there an identifiable pattern in the defects and discrepancies?
Is there any discernible trend in filing of Form 27 over time and with respect to patent owners?

The objective of this paper is to quantitatively determine the extent to which patentees and licensees comply with the statutory requirement to declare information about the working of their patents according to Section 146(2) of the Patents Act, 1970 read with Rule 131 of the Patent Rules, 2003.

Section 146(2): Without prejudice to the provisions of sub-section (1), every patentee and every licensee (whether exclusive or otherwise) shall furnish in such manner and form and at such intervals (not being less than six months) as may be prescribed statements as to the extent to which the patented invention has been worked on a commercial scale in India.

Rule 131: Form and manner in which statements required under section 146(2) to be furnished

The statements shall be furnished by every patentee and every licensee under sub-section (2) of section 146 in Form 27 which shall be duly verified by the patentee or the licensee or his authorised agent.
The statements referred to in sub-rule (1) shall be furnished in respect of every calendar year within three months of the end of each year.
The Controller may publish the information received by him under sub-section (1) or sub-section (2) of section 146.

Object

The research object is Form 27 submissions made annually to the Indian Patent Office for the 4,419 granted patents.

4,052 of these patents were identified in the landscape (“the patent landscape”) developed by the Centre for Internet and Society as a part of ongoing research on patents pertaining to sub-USD-100 mobile devices sold in India. The dataset of the patent landscape can be accessed here. Another 367 patents pertaining to mobile technology identified during the landscaping exercise but excluded from it, were added to the initial set of 4,052 patents.

A blank copy of Form 27 is available here. The pro forma is defined as per Schedule II of Patent Rules, 2003.

Research Methods

[Corresponding research questions

How many annual Form 27 submissions have been made to the Indian Patent Office for 4,419 granted patents identified in the landscape of mobile device patents in India?
How many patents have no corresponding Form 27 filed yet?
How many Form 27 submissions from those found are defective?]

Outsourcing the searching of the submitted copies of Form 27 to a contractor

Owing to the repetitive nature of the process for collecting the forms, as well the large scale of the project, the task of searching was outsourced to a contractor. Price quotations were invited from five data entry operators and two firms of patent attorneys. On the basis of the quotation, deliverable time, scope and nature of the results delivered, and quality assurance, the contract was awarded to one firm. The firm offered the best price for a commensurate deliverable time and assured quality of results.

Form 27 retrieval online

Form 27 were searched from IPAIRS (Indian Patent Information Retrieval System) and InPASS (Indian Patent Advanced Search System) public databases of the Indian Patent Office.

InPASS has two features: Application Status and E-Register. We checked both features, in case forms not found through one could be located through the other. We indeed found that, sometimes, the forms not available on E-register could be found through the Application Status table, and vice versa.

Case 1: Accessing form 27 using Application Status tab on INPASS

A search portal is located at ipindiaservices.gov.in/publicsearch.

Enter the patent number in the “Patent Number” search field without the kind codes (IN) and click on “Search”. E.g., for patent number IN263932B, enter ‘263932’ in the “Patent Number” field.
Once the queried patent is displayed, select the “Application Status” tab to access the list of documents that were filed for the requested patent.

In the Application Status tab, scroll down to the bottom to view “Application Status table”. Click on the “View Documents” button to access the list of the documents filed for the queried patent. A pop-up window opens with the results.

In the window, a list of hyperlinks to various documents is displayed. Sometimes Form 27/ working statement is explicitly named so. At other times, it may have a different title. Once you click on the form 27 link, a PDF file opens in a new tab. There may be more than one Form 27 in the list of documents as Form 27 is an annual submission.

Case 2: No record of Form 27 found (Application status tab)

If the form is not present on InPASS, that is, if it has not been uploaded to the website, or if it has not been submitted to the Indian Patent Office (IPO), then it will not be displayed in the list of documents described in Case 1, step 5. Such instances have been logged as “No record found”.

Case 3: Accessing form 27 using E-Register tab on INPASS

At http://ipindiaservices.gov.in/publicsearch, a patent search portal is displayed. Enter the patent number by following the same steps as described in Case 1 until the queried patent is displayed. Select the “E-register” tab to access the e-register data corresponding to the queried patent.

In the “E-register” tab, scroll to the bottom to view the “Information u/s 146” table. The “Information u/s 146” table includes a list of Form 27 filed for the queried patent. As visible in the screenshot below, on clicking the “261762_2015” hyperlink, Form 27 for the queried patent opens. There could be multiple form 27s corresponding to different years.

Case 4: No record of Form 27 found (E-register)

If the form is not present in the E-register, that is, if it has not been uploaded to the website or if it has not been submitted to the IPO, then the E-Register tab displays “Eregister Not Available”.

Case 5: Searching on IPAIRS

Both InPASS and IPAIRS fetch forms from the same URL. However, we observed that one search engine sometimes displays the forms when the other doesn’t. The IPAIRS search engine was used when Form 27 was not found on InPASS.

IPAIRS patent search homepage: http://ipindiaonline.gov.in/patentsearch/search/index.aspx On the home page, in the Application Status tab, enter the full patent application number and CAPTCHA.
A window containing information pertaining to the patent application opens. At the bottom of the window, there is a “View Documents” button.

On clicking on “View Documents”, a new window with list of hyperlinked documents opens as described in Case 1, Step 5.

The URL for the new window displayed via “View Documents” on IPAIRS is the same as the URL displayed via “View Documents” in the “Application Status” tab on InPASS. For example, for patent number 263932, the URL for this window is the same on IPAIRS and InPASS: http://ipindiaonline.gov.in/patentsearch/GrantedSearch/viewdoc.aspx?id=Bx6eZ7YQLgsl3yH1LqKHjg==&loc=wDBSZCsAt7zoiVrqcFJsRw==

Form 27 retrieval via Right To Information (RTI) requests

CIS filed two requests under the RTI Act, 2005 with the Office of the Controller General of Patents, Designs, and Trade Marks in Mumbai.

CIS' RTI application to the Indian Patent Office in Mumbai, March 2016 [PDF]. The IPO's reply, April 2016 [PDF].

(View text: https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/rti-request-to-indian-patents-office-for-form-27-statement-of-working-of-patents-march-2016)

CIS' RTI application to the IPO in Mumbai, June 2015 [PDF]. The IPO's reply, June 2015 [PDF].

(View text: https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/rti-request-to-indian-patents-office-for-form-27-statement-of-working-of-patents-2015)

InPASS and IPAIRS yielded Form 27 for 1,999 patents out of 4,419. For Form 27 pertaining to 61 of the remaining patents, CIS made a request in March 2016 under the Right to Information Act (2005) to the office of the Indian Patent Office located in Mumbai.

How the 61 patents were chosen
37 of the 50 companies in the patent landscape owned granted patents. We took one patent from each of the 37 companies. [See Annexure 4 (PDF)of Methodology: Patent landscaping in the Indian mobile device market] The remaining were patents litigated in India, as well as patents transferred from one of the companies in the landscape to another.

IPO’s reply to the March 2016 RTI application
The IPO replied in April 2016 that it could provide CIS with forms for eleven of the requested patents. As for the rest of the forms, the IPO stated, “As thousand [sic] of Form-27 are filed in this office, it is very difficult to segregate Form-27 for the patent numbers enlisted in your RTI application as it needs diversion of huge official/ staff manpower and it will affect day to day [sic] work of this office.”

Repeating the Form 27 search online

A few days after CIS received the reply from the IPO, Form 27 pertaining to patents in the landscape started appearing on InPASS and IPAIRS E-register portal. CIS’ contractor repeated the search for forms for all 4,419 patents as some forms filed in 2016 and 2015 were found. Forms for additional 1,003 patents were found, taking the number of patents with at least one corresponding form to 3,002.

Of the 1,417 patents for which forms were not found, 481 are either expired or there is no log corresponding to them in the E-Register.

Schema for the results

Information from the Form 27 was logged into a spreadsheet with the following heads:
Serial Number -- Assignee -- Patent Number -- Status -- Application Date -- Grant Date -- Title -- Application Number -- Form 27 presence -- Multiple Forms -- Number of years -- Year -- If Worked -- Working/ Non-working Status -- Working/ Non-working Information -- Licensing Status -- Licensing Information -- Comments.

Detailed legend and process of logging the results

Assignee: Name of the company that owns the patent. Annexure 4 [PDF] lists 50 companies studied for the patent landscape. 37 of those companies owned patents in India. Thus, the assignee could be one of 37 companies among the 50 in Annexure 4. Where two assignees are mentioned, the patent was transferred from the second assignee to the first on account of sale of the patent, company merger, etc. For example, "Huawei|NEC" indicates that a patent that belonged to NEC was transferred to Huawei.

Form 27 presence: Whether or not Form 27 was found. Entries in this column are either “Yes” or “No”. If case Form 27 was not found, the subsequent columns are unpopulated.

Multiple Forms: If more than one Form 27 was found, the number of years for which it was found. In some cases, more than one form was found for the same patent for the same year. We have considered these instances as a single form for the same year and noted the defect in the “Comments” column.

Year: The year for which the form was filed. This information was found in #2 of the pro forma of Form 27. In the case of patents with Form 27 filed for more than one year, the entries for different years have been logged into consecutive rows.

If Worked: This information was found in 3(i) of the pro forma. Depending on whether the text of Form 27 states that the patent was “worked” or “not worked”, results have been logged as either “Yes” or “No”. In instances where it is not explicitly stated whether the patent has been worked or not, or where 3(i) is blank, the results are logged as “Not disclosed” with a description of the defect in the “Comments” column.

Working/ Non-working status: Corresponds to 3(i)a in the case of patents stated as “worked” and to 3(i)b in the case of those stated as “not worked”. The results have been marked as:

Description is generic (future use)
Description is generic (present use)
Description is specific
No description

Description is generic (future use): No specific information been provided as required by 3(i)a or 3(i)b. The description indicates that in the future the patentee might “work” or license the patent or do both. E.g: “May be worked in the future depending on the market demand and when technology is mature.”

“We are still assessing the commercial and technological aspects of working of this patent in India and negotiating marketing and distribution of patented product with related parties.”

“Technical developments [sic] are still continuing” or “Negotiations and technical developments [sic] are still continuing”.

Description is generic (present use): No specific information been provided as required by 3(i)a or 3(i)b. The description indicates that the patentee may be “working” the patent. E.g:, “DUE TO THE NATURE OF THE INVENTION, IT IS NOT POSSIBLE TO DETERMINE ACCURATELY WHETHER THE PATENTED INVENTION HAS BEEN WORKED IN INDIA OR NOT. Improvements in the invention are continuing to be made. The Patentee is actively looking for licensees and customers to commercialise the invention in the Indian environment.”

“... This patent is among a large number of patents in the patentee’s complex portfolio which may cover the products services and embedded technologies provided by the patentee or its licensee(s) in India. This patent might worked [sic] in India in some of the patentee(s) existing or future products, services and embedded technologies. Given the extremely Iarge number of patents that may apply to any given product or service of the patentee, it is very difficult to Identify and accurately update which of those patents would apply to the numerous products, services and embedded technologies.”

Description is specific: Specific information has been provided as required in 3(i)a or 3(i)b.

E.g, “Quantum of the patented product-303520 and value of the patented product in INR-2790524299”.

No description: 3(i)a and 3(i)b are blank.

Working/non-working information: Contains the full text of the descriptions mentioned in “Working/non-working status” column. These have been reproduced verbatim from Form 27 filings.

Licensing status: States whether or not the patent has been licensed as per 3(ii) of the pro forma for Form 27. Results are logged as “Yes” (licensed), “No” (no-licensed), “Cross-licensed” and “Not disclosed”.

“Not disclosed” indicates that the response to 3(ii) is either blank or there is an explicit statement that licensing information would not be disclosed on Form 27. E.g: “As all the licenses are confidential in nature, the details pertaining to the same are not being disclosed herein and may be provided to the Patent Office as and when the same is specifically directed by the Patent Office under sealed cover so that such details are not laid open in public domain.”

Licensing information: Contains the full text of the response reproduced verbatim from 3(ii). (Blank fields when there is no text in 3(ii))

For patents marked as licensed, this column contains the names and addresses of licensees and/ or sub-licensees.

For patents marked as not-licensed, this column is either blank or contains statements such as, “Information Not readily available; efforts will be made to collect and submit further information, if asked for.”, “None”, “No licensees”.

For patents marked as “cross-licensed”, the patentee states that it has a cross-licensing agreement with its licensees. E.g: “There is a cross license agreement between <company name> and at least one licensee, giving mutual rights to produce despite monopoly afforded by patents that are hold by any of the companies. There is no information available on whether the technology of said patent is included products sold by such licensee. As all the licenses are confidential in nature, the details pertaining to the same shall be provided under specific directions from the Patent Office.”

Comments: Contains information about defects and notable observations from the Form 27 submissions.

Validation of results

Validation of the results was done via deduplication first and then random sampling of 10% of the results.

Analysis of results

[Corresponding research questions:
4. Is there an identifiable pattern in the defects and discrepancies?
5. Is there any discernible trend in filing of Form 27 over time and with respect to patent owners?]

The results logged into the spreadsheet were analysed to find a pattern in the defects in the submissions. Visualisations will be created, if necessary.

Prior Art

Extraordinary writ petition in the matter of a public interest litigation, filed in the High Court of Delhi, Shamnad Basheer vs Union of India and others, C.M. No. 5590 of 2015 http://spicyip.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/FORM-27-WP-1R-copy.pdf

The petitioner(s) “sought to investigate the commercial working of certain patented inventions in India, particularly in relation to three key areas”. One of these areas include telecommunications technology. Para 53 to 58 of the writ elucidate on the petitioners’ observations and findings on “High technology patents and trolls”, while para 59 and 60 refer to the linkage between patents and products. Annexure P-8 of this petition contains copies of Form 27 filed by Ericsson in India. Annexure P-11 contains a “summary of findings of Form 27 investigations conducted by the petitioner”. Annexure P-4 (II. Telecommunications Sector) contains a list of 58 patents pertaining to the telecommunications domain in India. 21 of these are coincide with the patent landscape mentioned in “Research Object”.
Basheer had published a report in 2011 based on the findings of his RTI investigation of Form 27 pertaining to pharmaceutical patents in India. The report titled “RTI Applications and “Working” of Foreign Drugs in India?” is available at: http://www.spicyip.com/docs/Workingpatents.doc The report sheds light on lack of filing, incomplete filing and violation of patent working norms by pharmaceutical companies. He states having encountered difficulties during the RTI process: The RTI process was a very arduous one, with the patent office refusing information or claiming missing files in some cases. We had to resort to the appellate procedure in almost all cases. And in one case concerning the drugs Tarceva and Sutent, both the CPIO (Delhi office) and the appellate authority refused to provide information. We had to then take the matter up directly with Controller General PH Kurian who immediately ordered that the information be provided. Upon his instructions, the information was provided within 24 hours. However, we received this information only on the 4^th of April 2011, more than 6 months since we began the RTI process! (Source: Drug Firms and Patent "Working": Extent of Compliance with Form 27 http://spicyip.com/2011/04/drug-firms-and-patent-working-extent-of.html

Limitations

If Form 27 is not found on InPASS or INPAIRS, it is not possible to determine if the form has not been submitted to the IPO or it has been submitted but the IPO has not uploaded it. There is no publicly available database or log where such information is available.
Technical issues with the IPAIRS website hampered the speed of searching for and downloading Form 27. At the time of trial run in May 2015, the website was not available for nearly a week. Technical issues also lead to conflicting search results on IPAIRS and INPASS at times. For example, the form may be available via one search engine but not via another, even though they are fetched the files from the same database. Runtime errors occur due to browser caching.

Edited, September 10, 2017: To add -- URLs of the research paper on Form 27 published in July 2017, and of the dataset containing raw data, which was published and licensed CC-BY-SA 4.0.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/methodology-statements-of-working-form-27-of-indian-mobile-device-patents

Methodology: Patent Landscaping in the Indian Mobile Device Market

rohini — 2017-02-15T14:05:38Z

Through the patent landscaping exercise, we have identified patents pertaining to Internet-enabled mobile devices sold in India for USD 100 or less. The findings from this exercise are being used to develop legal strategies to reduce patent-based impediments to the widespread and rapid proliferation of this beneficial technology throughout India. The research methodology adopted for the patent landscaping exercise has been delineated here. This document is a work in progress.

1. Research Questions

Are there indications of increasing patent filing over time by the mobile device industry in India?
What patents pertain to capabilities commonly found in networked mobile devices sold in India for USD 100 or less?
What are the existing patent pools for each of the capabilities identified in question 2? What do we know about these patent pools?
Would the existing patent pools be sufficient to ensure that:

consumers continue to have access to inexpensive devices?
manufacturers operating in the budget segment are not snuffed out by patent litigation or do not pass on losses caused by patent litigation to their consumers?
the rights of patent holders are not infringed upon? If not, why?

Which of these patent pools could go into an India-based mobile device patent "pool of pools" formed possibly through government intervention and having a royalty level supportable by the domestic Indian consumer market for mobile devices?
What is the design and manufacturing flow of a finished Internet-enabled low-cost mobile phone sold in India?

2. Objective

The objective of the chapter is to exhaustively determine the number of patents that apply to an Internet-enabled mobile device that costs the equivalent of USD 100 or less in the Indian retail market. The set of patents is restricted to those that apply to technologies which are commonly found in such a device. This set of patents could be included in a patent pool for Indian manufacturers of mobile phones.

3. Object

[2. What patents pertain to capabilities commonly found in networked mobile devices sold in India for USD 100 or less?]

Eight mobile phones [Annexure 1 (PDF)] have been procured for identifying the technical standards implemented in them. These are phones manufactured in China and sold in the white or grey market in India either by Indian brands or by Chinese ones. The research object also includes the Indian patent database, documentation published by standard setting organisations, and the practices of Indian manufacturers of Internet-enabled mobile devices in the sub-USD-100 segment.

3.1. The phones were used to determine “capabilities commonly found in networked mobile devices sold in India for USD 100 or less” as described in research question 2. These capabilities were identified by (a) examining the physical components of the phone, (b) by running emulators which identified details about the hardware, (c) verifying the findings from (a) and (b) with the users' manual, packaging box, or any other documentation published by the manufacturer.

3.2. Criteria for Choosing the Mobile Phones

The handsets cost less than USD 100 (INR 6,000 approximately), connect to the Internet, and are sold in physical Indian markets.
Every handset has at least one feature that differentiates it from the rest of the set. For example, in-built support for multiple Indian languages; 50 kilowatt battery (as published on the carton and battery label); camera with CMOS sensor.
The universal set for the mobile phones of interest for this research can not be defined as the phones are sold in grey or black markets. Catalogues, online listings, company websites, and other documentation for this universal set are not available. Hence, it is not possible to definitively identify mobile phones that are 'representative' of the handsets of interest. Handsets that help one get a richer sense of the population of the sub-USD-100 mobile phone market in India have been chosen.

4. Rationale

Though India has not yet witnessed patent litigation of the same scale as developed countries, litigation over standard essential patents in India has already led to injunctions against nine homegrown and Chinese manufacturers^[1]. The mobile device landscape in India uncovered through this research will be applied to the development of policy recommendations that aim to ensure that consumers continue to have access to inexpensive devices, that manufacturers operating in the budget segment do not end up shutting shop due to patent litigation, and the rights of patent holders are not infringed upon.

5. Research Method

[1. Are there measurable indications of increasing patent filing by the mobile device industry in India?

2. What patents pertain to capabilities commonly found in networked mobile devices sold in India for USD 100 or less?]

Fifty Indian and non-Indian companies most likely to hold telecom-related patents in India were identified by CIS. [Annexure 4]. Two patent searchs firm were contracted the task of searching the database of the Indian Patent Office by the names of the fifty companies for patents granted and applied for.

5.1. Procedure for selecting law firms/ patent attorneys:

Ten law firms and patent search agencies from different parts of India were identified as potential contractors after preliminary meetings with several patent attorneys and representatives of law firms.
Price quotations were invited from the ten organisations after holding one or more meetings with each.
On the basis of the quotation, deliverable time, scope and nature of the results delivered, and quality assurance, the contract was awarded to one firm of patent attorneys (Hourglass Research, Mumbai) and one law firm. The firms offered the best price for a commensurate deliverable time and assured quality of results.

5.2. Patent Firm 1 (Hourglass Research) Search Strategy:

Step 1: A taxonomy that comprehensively covers different technologies implemented in an Internet-enabled mobile phone was drawn up [Annexure 5]. The taxonomy was split into categories (Level 1) and sub-categories (Level 2).

Step 2: The Derwent World Patents Index (DWPI) assigns one or more manual codes (MC) to each patent depending on the technology described by the patent. The patent firm matched manual codes pertaining to mobile technology with categories in the taxonomy. Thus, each manual code corresponded to one or more categories in the taxonomy.

Step 3: Subsequently, search strings [listed in Annexure 6] were used to find published applications as well as granted patents from the Thomson Innovation (TI) database. The search strings comprise permutations and combinations of the manual codes [Annexure 7], fifty assignees , keywords, and IPC classes and sub-classes. The search results were extracted on February 23, 2015. Hence, the patents granted or published till then have been included in the landscape. The start date is January 1, 2000 as the Thomson Innovation Database does not contain earlier records from the Indian Patent Office database.

Step 4: Then, manual codes for each patent in the results were extracted. Each patent was assigned a category corresponding to its manual codes. This automated categorisation was manually reviewed and validated by reading the claims, abstract, DWPI use, and DWPI novelty. In instances where the patent could not be categorised based on the information contained in the claims, abstract, DWPI use, and DWPI novelty, the detailed description associated with the patents (i.e., the column entitled "Description" in the dataset) was read.

Step 5: The TI database yields International Patent Documentation (INPADOC) families. In instances where one or more patents from the same family appeared in the search results, granted patents were chosen over non-granted ones as "representative" of the family.

Step 6: The results were deduplicated first on the basis of the publication number and then on the basis of the application number. In five instances, two or more different patents were assigned the same application number. This was resolved by manually reading the patent and determining the most relevant patent.

4,052 patents and 19,517 patent applications relevant to the mobile phone were found at the end of the patent landscaping exercise.

5.3. Schema for identified patents and patent applications: Name of Assignee -- Patent Number -- Application Number -- Status of application (Granted/ Published) -- Application Date -- Publication Date -- Grant Date -- Database Searched -- Title -- Abstract -- Category (Level 1) -- Sub-category (Level 2) -- Infrastructure/ User Equipment/ both -- Title (DWPI) -- Abstract (DWPI) -- Abstract DWPI Novelty -- Abstract DWPI Use -- Comments/ Remarks

5.4. List of IPC classes and sub-classes and DWPI Manual Codes excluded from the patent search: [Annexure 8], [Rejoinder to Annexure 8]

These classes, sub-classes and manual codes were excluded as they were very overarching for the research question. Class H04, for instance, pertains to "electric communication techniques". It is likely to comprise a comparatively large number of patents not pertaining to mobile device technology. Instead, certain sub-classes of H04 that are the most relevant to mobile device have been considered. As another example, the sub-classes of G01 pertain to measurements of physical quantities (length, area, thickness, et al). The number of patents pertaining to mobile technology in these sub-classes will be small compared with the number of patents in the sub-class.

5.5 Patent Search Firm 2

Patent Search Firm 2 used Questel and Questel Orbit databases to search for patents and patent applications filed in India from January 1, 2005 to January 1, 2015. The results delivered by this firm did not fulfill our quality standards. Hence, they were dropped from the research. We intended to compare the results of the two search firms to determine the difference.

5.6. Identifying telecom standards implemented in mobile phones:

[2. What patents pertain to capabilities commonly found in networked mobile devices sold in India for USD 100 or less?]

Using documentation available from standards-setting organisations and industry consortia, and from the nine handsets, 322 technical standards [Annexure 2] implemented in a networked mobile device have been identified by CIS. These technical standards support commonly found capabilities in a networked mobile handset. By dismantling the phones, their components were identified [Annexure 3]. The list of components and standards was used to determine the patent pools, standard-setting organisations and standard development organisations of interest for research questions 3 and 4 as well as for the literature survey.

6. Validation of Results

The results of the patent landscaping exercise turned in by the patent search firm were validated by performing the following steps:

Checking for duplicate application numbers via MySql
Checking for duplicate publication numbers via MySql

No duplicates were found.

7. Analysis of Results

[2. What patents pertain to capabilities commonly found in networked mobile devices sold in India for USD 100 or less?]

7.1. Data Analysis: Breakdown of 23,569 patents and patent applications

Number of patents and patent applications combined in the different Level 1 categories,

Number of patents and patent applications combined in Level 2 categories (i.e., sub-categories).

7.2. Visualisations: Graphical representations of the patent landscape

1. Number of patents in each Level 1 category
2. Number of published patent applications versus granted patents in each Level 1 category
3. Number of patents in each sub-category of “Communication”
4. Number of patents in each sub-category of “Operational Blocks”
5. Number of patents in each sub-category of “Sensors”
6. Number of patents in each sub-category of “Energy Storage”
7. Number of patents in each sub-category of “Sound, image, and video”
8. Number of patents in each sub-category of “Display”
9. Number of user equipment patents, infrastructure patents and infrastructure and user equipment patents.
10. Number of patents held by each of the fifty assignees
11. Number of patent filings by the fifty assignees from the year 2000 to the year 2014
12. Number of patents in each Level 1 category filed over the years (time intervals: 2000-2003, 2004-2007, 2008-2011, 2012-2014)
13. Number of patents filed annually from the year 2000 to 2014 for all Level 1 categories combined
14. Top 10 assignees in Communication
15. Top 10 assignees in Operational Blocks
16. Top 10 assignees in Software
17. Top 10 assignees in Sensors
18. Top 10 assignees in Sound, Image, and Video
19. Top 10 assignees in Display
20. Number of patents in each Level 1 category held by each assignee in the top 10. (The ten assignees with the most number of patents in the overall dataset of 23,569.)
21. Number of patents filed from the year 2000 to 2014 in each sub-category of Communication
22. Number of patents filed from the year 2000 to 2014 in each sub-category of Operational Blocks
23. Sub-categories (Level 2 categories) with the highest number of filings [Baseband; Bandwidth; Call and data management; Signalling, routing and switching]
24. Top 10 assignees in Baseband
25. Top 10 assignees in Bandwidth
26. Top 10 assignees in Call and data management
27. Top 10 assignees in Signalling, routing and switching

8. Confidential Research and Anonymised Interviews

[6. What is the design and manufacturing flow of a finished Internet-enabled low-cost mobile phone sold in India?]

CIS conducted and published anonymised interviews with semiconductor chip manufacturers in Taiwan in September 2014. A confidential research exercise was conducted with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and white-label assembly lines in China in 2014. The two research exercises have contributed to the mapping of the downstream flow of manufacturing a finished, Internet-enabled, low-cost mobile device.

9. Literature Survey

[3. What are the existing patent pools for each of the capabilities found in a low-cost networked mobile device? What do we know about these patent pools?

4. Would the existing patent pools be sufficient to ensure that consumers continue to have access to inexpensive devices, that manufacturers operating in the budget segment are not snuffed out by patent litigation (or pass on losses caused by patent litigation to their consumers), and the rights of patent holders are not infringed upon. If not, why?]

Research questions 3 and 4 will be answered via a comprehensive literature survey.

10. Prior Art

A list of 2,300 patents from different jurisdictions (US, Japan, India, Korea, Sweden, Taiwan, Europe, China, Finland, France, Norway, UK, Germany, Singapore) searched by keyword/ keystring was compiled in 2013 ^[2].

Clairvolex, a market research firm based in Gurgaon conducted a patent landscaping exercise of mobil technologies in India in 2010. The search was based on IPC classes: http://www.clairvolex.com/pdf/communication.pdf

11. Narrative:

The chapter for the book takes the form of a story of an Indian businessperson travelling to Shenzhen in China to procure a consignment of mobile phones for selling them in India. The businessperson puts together a configuration of hardware and software for the mobile phone and sets out to find the royalties he would need to pay for it.

Numerical data has been presented using visualisations.

12. Assumptions:

The chapter assumes a direct link between the patent regime and the availability of inexpensive Internet-enabled mobile devices, whereas the latter is affected by several other factors outside the scope of this research, for example, trademark infringement litigation.

13. Limitations:

The patent landscape only encompasses the patents and patent applications filed by 50 major brands in India. It does not take into account patents held by other vendors, universities, and educational institutions.
The patent landscaping exercise was conducted for patents granted and applications filed between January 1, 2000 and February 23, 2015 as earlier data for Indian patents was not available in the Thomson Reuters database. As the lifespan of a patent is 20 years, live patents granted between 1995 and 2000 in India are not present in the landscape.
IPC classes, sub-classes and DWPI manual codes listed in Annexure 8 were not included in the patent landscape as they were very overarching for the research question. Class H04, for instance, pertains to "electric communication techniques". It is likely to comprise a comparatively large number of patents not pertaining to mobile device technology. Instead, certain sub-classes of H04 that are the most relevant to mobile device have been considered. As another example, the sub-classes of G01 pertain to measurements of physical quantities (length, area, thickness, et al). The number of patents pertaining to mobile technology in these sub-classes will be small compared with the number of patents in the sub-class. Owing to the presence of a relatively large number of patents superfluous to the research, these classes were not included in the interest of time, effort, and monetary cost.

Edited, April 8, 2015: To add -- Procedure for selecting law firms/ patent attorneys for this task, Patent database searching by company name, List of companies

Edited April 27, 2015: To update -- Annexure 2, List of standards and specifications found in sub-USD-100 Internet-enabled mobile phones sold in India.

Edited, May 23, 2015: To remove "Scope: Software patents will not be considered" as software patents granted in India have been found.

Edited, July 25, 2015: To remove steps "Patent database searching by standard" and "patent database searching by keyword" as they would have increased the time and costs needed for the landscaping without adding significant value. Hence, removed the research question, "What degree of standards implemented in the mobile device technology sold within India compared with that in the US is currently covered by patents?"

Edited, November 7, 2015: To edit – Research question 1. Are there measurable indications of increasing patenting activity in the mobile device industry in India?

2. What patents are absolutely necessary to keep a networked mobile device which costs less than USD 100 in India running?

3. What are the existing patent pools for each of the standards identified and what do we know about them?

4. Question trifurcated.

5. Which of these patent pools could go into an India-based mobile device patent "pool of pools" formed possibly through government intervention and having a royalty level supportable by the domestic Indian mobile device market?

Research Objective: The set of patents is restricted to those that apply to technologies that are absolutely necessary for the functioning of such a device.

To add in “Research Object”: The research object was used to determine “ features commonly found in networked mobile devices sold in India that cost less than USD 100” as described in research question 2.

To add sections on Analysis of Results, Confidential Research and Anonymised Interviews, and Literature Survey.

Edited, November 17, 2015: To add section on Limitations.

Footnotes:

[1]. Compilation of Mobile Phone Patent Litigation Cases in India, Rohini Lakshané, March 15, 2015, http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/compilation-of-mobile-phone-patent-litigation-cases-in-india, Last accessed November 7, 2015.

[2]. Mobile Phone Patents: Prior Art Survey, Nehaa Chaudhari, October 23, 2013, http://cis-india.org/a2k/blog/mobile-phone-patents, Last accessed November 7, 2015.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/patent-landscaping-in-the-indian-mobile-device-market

Literature Survey: Patent Landscaping in the Indian Marketplace

rohini — 2016-01-22T02:50:39Z

This literature survey identifies previously published research relevant to the research on patent landscaping in the Indian mobile device market, which has been undertaken as a part of the Pervasive Technologies project. This document is a work-in-progress.

Download the files:

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/literature-survey-patent-landscaping-in-the-indian-marketplace

Joining the Dots in India's Big-Ticket Mobile Phone Patent Litigation (Updated)

rohini — 2018-05-06T03:51:49Z

An analysis of the significant commonalities and differences in various big-ticket lawsuits in India over the alleged infringement of mobile device patents.

This blog post has been merged with another on the same topic and published as a paper. The paper was last updated in October 2017.

View paper on SSRN.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/joining-the-dots-in-indias-big-ticket-mobile-phone-patent-litigation

Google Play Safety App Permissions

rohini — 2023-03-18T04:28:40Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/files/google-play-safety-app-permissions

Google Play Safety App Permissions

rohini — 2023-03-18T04:32:37Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/files/google-play-safety-app-permissions.ods

FAQ: CIS' Proposal for Compulsory Licensing of Critical Mobile Technologies

rohini — 2016-02-14T04:40:29Z

Earlier this year, the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) had proposed that the Government of India (GoI) initiate the formation of a patent pool of critical mobile technologies and mandate a five percent compulsory license. The proposal was made in light of ongoing litigation in India over standard essential patents pertaining to mobile technology, and the government's own “Make in India” and “Digital India” programmes.

Read CIS' proposal to the Government of India regarding the formation of a patent pool here. To read about ongoing litigation in India over standard essential patents pertaining to mobile technology, click here.

1. How did CIS arrive upon the figure of 5 percent as the compulsory licensing fee for the patent pool?

As part of foreign technology agreements, the Department of Industrial Development (DID) introduced a ceiling of 5 percent on the royalty rates charged for domestic sale and 8 percent for export of goods pertaining to "high priority industries" in the year 1991. Royalties higher than 5 percent or 8 percent, as the case may be, required securing approval from the government[1]. While 1991 was too early for the mobile device manufacturing industry to be listed among high priority industries, the public announcement by the government covered computer software, consumer electronics, and electrical and electronic appliances for home use[2]. In 2009, another department under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, the Department for Industrial Policy and Promotion, revoked the cap on royalty rates[3]. Sanjana Govil throws some light on why government regulation on intellectual property was introduced in the early 90s and how it succeeded in reducing the flow of money out of India: Putting a Lid on Royalty Outflows — How the RBI can Help Reduce India 's IP Costs.

The situation in 1991 is somewhat analogous to the current one where most of the patent holders in the mobile device technology domain are multinational corporations, which results in large royalty amounts leaving India. At the same time, litigation over patent infringement in India has thwarted the manufacture and sale of mobile devices of homegrown brands. Additionally, these developments are detrimental to the Modi government’s aim of encouraging local manufacturing as well as strengthening India’s intellectual property regime.

2. How would royalties be distributed among patent holders in a patent pool where a single fee of 5 percent is being charged?

A patent pool formed for the purpose of compulsorily licensing the patents contained in it can be managed by combining government intervention with the governance structure of a voluntary patent pool. Vikrant Narayan Vasudeva enumerates the different approaches to setting royalty rates in a patent pool once a “royalty base” has been established[4]:

● Rule of Thumb

● Numerical Proportionality

● Industry Standards / Market or Comparable Technology Method

● Discounted Cash Flow

● Ranking

● Cost-based Rate Setting

● Surrogate Measures

● Disaggregation Methods

● Option Methods

● Competitive Advantage Valuation (R)

3. The letter implicitly suggests that litigation intended to protect the interests of patent holders could potentially have a chilling effect on government initiatives, local innovation and the interests of consumers. Is there evidence to support this?

Though there is a thin line between legitimate application of legal remedies and chilling effects, the ramifications of the acitivies of non-practising entities (NPEs), of strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPP suits), and of frivolous lawsuits provide plenty of evidence to support making such a proposal.

Some indicative examples:

Patent trolling pays: Since 2010, trolls have made 3 times as much money in court as real companies

Kootol (India-based troll with US and European patent applications) sends notices to many companies regarding Twitter/Facebook-style feeds

Alleged troll that sued eBay over PTO reexamination dismisses lawsuit

Patent Troll Lodsys Settles for Nothing to Avoid Trial

Why I’m not paying the Troll Toll

[1] Press Note No. 12 (1991 Series), Procedures in respect of foreign technology agreement, http ://eaindustry .nic .in /handbk /chap 003.pdf, Last accessed September 16, 2015.

[2] Press Note No. 10 (1992 Series), Revised List of Annex-III items, http ://eaindustry .nic .in /handbk /chap 005.pdf, Last accessed September 16, 2015.

[3] Press Note No.8 of 2009, Liberalization of Foreign Technology Agreement policy, http ://dipp .gov .in /English /acts _rules /Press _Notes /pn 8_2009.pdf, Last accessed September 16, 2015.

[4] B. Setting Royalty Rates, Patent Valuation and License Fee Determination in Context of Patent Pools, Vikrant Narayan Vasudeva, http ://cis -india .org /a 2 k /blogs /patent -valuation -and -license -fee -determination -in -context -of -patent -pools, Last accessed September 16, 2015.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/faq-cis-proposal-for-compulsory-licensing-of-critical-mobile-technologies

Dataset: Patent Landscape of Mobile Device Technologies in India

rohini — 2016-05-03T20:06:43Z

Patent landscape of mobile technology patents and patent applications held by 50 companies operating in India. Licensed CC-BY-SA 4.0.

Dataset: Patent Landscape of Mobile Device Technologies in India

This dataset contains a landscape of 23,569 patents and patent applications registered in India and relevant to the domain of mobile technology. These patents and patent applications are held by 50 Indian and non-Indian companies operating in the country. The patent landscape has been released under the Creative Commons-Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 (CC-BY-SA 4.0) License as a part of the ongoing Pervasive Technologies research project.

For the detailed methdology used for drawing up this landscape, read: Methodology: Patent Landscaping in the Indian Mobile Device Marketplace

A paper titled "Patents and Mobile Devices in India: An Empirical Survey" published on SSRN in March 2016 presents an analyis of this patent landscape.

For queries regarding the dataset or its reuse, write to rohini@cis-india.org.

Using this dataset:

Assignee: The assignee is one of 50 companies specified in Annexure 4 of the methodology document. Where two assignees are mentioned, the patent was transferred from the second assignee to the first on account of sale of the patent, company merger, etc. For example, "Huawei|NEC" indicates that a patent that belonged to NEC was transferred to Huawei.

Patent Number: This column contains the patent number in the case of granted patents and the application number in case of patent applications. Patent numbers have been coded in the Thomson Reuters database as IN<6 digit number>B. For example, the patent number 247760 in the Indian Patent Office database is coded as IN247760B in this dataset. The application number is coded as well. However, there is a separate column (Column R) for the application number as given in the Indian Patent Office database.

Level 1: Patents and patent applications in the landscape have been categorised into: Body Design, Communication, Connectable Interfaces, Display, Energy Storage, Memory, Operational Blocks, Sensors, Software, and Sound, image and video.

Level 2: Almost all categories have further been divided into sub-categories, i.e., Level 2 categories.

Infrastructure/ UE: Refers to whether the patent pertains to infrastructure and the user equipment (IUE) or only the user equipment (UE).

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/dataset-patent-landscape-of-mobile-device-technologies-in-india

Dataset for "Patent Working Requirements and Complex Products: An Empirical Assessment of India's Form 27 Practice and Compliance"

rohini — 2017-09-10T15:11:38Z

Dataset of the first comprehensive and systematic analysis of 4,916 valid Statements of Working (Form 27) corresponding to 3,126 patents pertaining to mobile technology in India. Licensed CC-BY-SA 4.0.

Dataset for "Patent Working Requirements and Complex Products: An Empirical Assessment of India's Form 27 Practice and Compliance" (.xlsx)

Dataset for "Patent Working Requirements and Complex Products: An Empirical Assessment of India's Form 27 Practice and Compliance" (.ods)

The dataset has been released under the Creative Commons-Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 License (CC-BY-SA 4.0) as a part of the Pervasive Technologies project.

For the detailed methdology used for this study, refer to Methodology: Statements of Working (Form 27) of Indian Mobile Device Patents. For information on how to read this dataset, refer to the section "Detailed legend and process of logging the results" in the methodology.

A paper titled Patent Working Requirements and Complex Products: An Empirical Assessment of India's Form 27 Practice and Compliance authored by Prof. Jorge Contreras and Rohini Lakshané, published in July 2017 presents an analysis of the dataset.

The patents chosen to be included in this dataset are a subset of the patents found in another study by the same authors, Patents and Mobile Devices in India: An Empirical Survey [PDF]. The dataset for the patent landscaping study is available under the CC-BY-SA 4.0 license.

License terms

Data is provided AS-IS, without warranty as to accuracy or completeness.

All uses of the accompanying data and modifications and derivatives thereof must contain the following attribution: "Data provided by Jorge L. Contreras and Rohini Lakshané (2017)"

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/dataset-for-patent-working-requirements-and-complex-products-an-empirical-assessment-of-indias-form-27-practice-and-compliance

Conference on Standards Settings Organizations (SSO) and FRAND, NLSIU

rohini — 2016-04-02T18:12:41Z

Rohini Lakshané attended the Conference on Standards Settings Organizations (SSO) and FRAND held at NLSIU, Bengaluru on March 21 and 22, 2015. It was organised by the MHRD Chair on Intellectual Property Rights, Centre for Intellectual Property Rights and Advocacy (CIPRA), National Law School of India University, Bengaluru in association with Intel Technology India. This post is a compilation of notes from the conference.

Programme Schedule

Significant Takeaways
It is anti-competitive to seek to exclude competitors from the market by seeking injunctions on the basis of SEPs, if the licensee is willing to take a license on FRAND terms. In these circumstances, the seeking of injunctions can distort licensing negotiations and lead to unfair licensing terms, with a negative impact on consumer choice and prices. -- EU Competition Policy Brief, Issue 8, June 2014. This is a very important issue for India as it thinks about how it can attract foreign investments. India has a unique opportunity to learn from these lessons from around the globe and craft India-specific solutions. India has the intellectual capability and the institutions capable of crafting these solutions, and in doing that we can support Make In India. India needs to be mindful about what is happening in the [South Asian] region. China has moved aggressively to try to curb FRAND abuse. The People's Court in China ruled in Huawei vs. InterDigital that for 2G, 3G, and 4G patents, the license fees of royalties should not exceed 0.019% of the actual sale price. Apple also stated that Ericsson was calculating royalties on the sale price of the iPhone or iPad, whereas the royalty should be calculated on the value of the baseband chip that runs this technology in the mobile device. If such litigation occurs in India, what would be India's position? If a building block contains the technology pertaining to a patent, then royalty should be calculated on the smallest possible patent practising unit and not the entire product. The government of India has adopted a royalty free (RF) approach to licensing open standards. Non-essential claims are excluded from disclosure. Pending patent applications are not. Only 16% patents declared as SEPs are actually SEPs, according to a study. The Delhi High Court has passed interim orders restraining the CCI from deciding these cases. Our appeal to the courts is that these patent infringement lawsuits should not be viewed in isolation. They should not be viewed as merely contractual issues between the licensor and the licensee. They should be seen in the context of their economic effects and their adverse effect on competition. The CCI should be enabled to deal with such cases. Matheson: The phrase "compulsory license" sends a shiver down every corporate's spine every time it is used. International experience is that the judicial system has been the only forum where we have been able to have due process to enable us to construct cases properly in order to explain to the judge or to the jurors how the system works. That has produced very sensible solutions to this problem. Handing it off to the government to institute a compulsory license wouldn't be fair to the SEP holders.

SSOs and FRAND: Licensing issues

John Matheson, Director of Legal Policy (Asia Pacific), Intel

The role of licensing policy

Ensuring market access
Standards often depend on patented technology, which is accessed through the Promise to License on FRAND terms.
It is equally critical to ensure that standards can be implemented without unfair legal games.
It is essential to prevent patent hold-up.
Reasonable compensation

Patent holders remain entitled to fair compensation and benefit from the proliferation of their technologies via standardisation.

Why FRAND?

A FRAND commitment embodies certain fundamental principles that have been recognised widely by the courts and regulators.

The fundamental purpose of a FRAND commitment is widespread adoption of the standard.

Because of the peculiar nature of SEPs, the process is open to abuse.

A FRAND commitment is aimed at preventing patent holders from exploiting a hold-up value and extracting unreasonable royalties and concessions that could otherwise follow from being in a very unique position. Often, the holders of the IP have a single solution to an interoperability or connectivity conundrum that technology is facing.

Why are SEP license negotiations different from Non-SEP ones?

In the context of non-SEPs, one may be negotiating to obtain a license to a patent for a particular feature. If the licensor is being difficult, one can discard the feature to include something else. In a competitive market, this negotiation is focused on the value of the invention to be licensed. Thus one can redesign to avoid a particular claim and, in turn, avoid injunction.

On the other hand, it is necessary to either obtain a license for or infringe an SEP to manufacture the mobile device. There is no workable alternative or workaround to obtaining a license for the desired technology. With the threat of an injunction looming over the negotiations, the prospective licensee is under pressure to obtain a license. So the market negotiations for SEPs and non-SEPs are very different. One-way negotiations raise the possibility of a patent hold-up, and abuse of the standard implementer.

IP policies inevitably involve compromise.

Common areas of misunderstanding include:

Valuations or meaning of "reasonable". Valuations of IP under consideration.
Injunctive relief or exclusion orders
Discrimination or refusal to license
Patent transfer (It requires a continuation of the FRAND commitment, and shouldn't get differential treatment in the IP policy.)

Competition authorities in the US and EU have asked SSOs to reconsider policies to reduce ambiguity in the context of these areas of misunderstanding.

The ex-ante or the incremental value of the SEPs before the standard is set needs to be understood. The SSOs look at several different ways to solve a connectivity problem. The patent owners bring their patents into the standards body and claim that theirs is the best way to solve that problem. The market and consumers want an uncomplicated solution which works and is as cheap as possible. In many cases, there is one single winner, simply because we need one solution. In exchange for being the winner, the FRAND discipline is quid pro quo.

European Commission's response to two different patent lawsuits:

In the Samsung and Motorola cases, the Commission clarifies that in the standardisation context where the SEP holders have committed to:

License their SEPs
Do so on FRAND terms

It is anti-competitive to seek to exclude competitors from the market by seeking injunctions on the basis of SEPs, if the licensee is willing to take a license on FRAND terms.

In other words, if there is a bona fide commitment on the part of the licensee to agree to that test, then it is anti-competitive to seek an injunction.

In these circumstances, the seeking of injunctions can distort licensing negotiations and lead to unfair licensing terms, with a negative impact on consumer choice and prices. -- EU Competition Policy Brief, Issue 8, June 2014.

Anyone who needs access to connectivity or needs interoperability requires to get a SEP license, and if that license is required to be obtained within a time limit, it almost -- by definition -- is not going to work. Patent licenses take years to negotiate, and they're incredibly complex. For example, a patent policy may offer up to 12 months to agree on a license, but that is not the way the market works. So we cannot expect policies that put forth time limits to work in the SEP arena. What we can expect is that the implementers make a bona fide commitment to seek a license.

Motorola vs. Microsoft, Germany:

Motorola sought injunctive relief against Microsoft in Germany. Microsoft moved its distribution centre from Germany to the Netherlands. This resulted in loss of jobs, relocation costs ($11.6 million), and annual increased operating costs of $5 million for Microsoft.

Samsung vs. Apple, Germany

Similarly, on the basis of one patent, a temporary injunction was granted on the sale of the Apple iPad and iPhone. Apple was forced to agree to terms it didn't want to agree to, so that the sale of its products would resume.

This is a very important issue for India as it thinks about how it can attract foreign investments. India has a unique opportunity to learn from these lessons from around the globe and craft India-specific solutions. India has the intellectual capability and the institutions capable of crafting these solutions, and in doing that we can support Make In India.

SEP holders that make FRAND commitments should not be allowed to obtain injunctions against alleged infringers, except in limited circumstances. This formula has been adopted by the IEEE, which has solved this problem. India has the opportunity to leapfrog a lot of patent litigation by adopting the IEEE test.

Learn from what happened with Microsoft in Germany. What kind of message do you want to send to the foreign community about investing in India? Do you want to use the scare tactics of injunctions or do you want to adopt a policy that will avoid litigation?

India needs to be mindful about what is happening in the [South Asian] region. China has moved aggressively to try to curb FRAND abuse. The People's Court in China ruled in Huawei vs. InterDigital that for 2G, 3G, and 4G patents, the license fees of royalties should not exceed 0.019% of the actual sale price.

Reasonable Compensation Considerations

Royalty based on the smallest unit that practices the standard.
Technical value of patented technologies vs. alternatives.
Overall royalty that could reasonably charged for all SEPs.

Non-discrimination

A commitment to license every implementer of the relevant standard.

Transfer

FRAND commitments follow the transfer of a patent to subsequent proprietors.

Dr. Krishna Sirohi, Impact Innovator, GISFI, President, I2TB

As per the Make in India programme, we have to achieve zero imports by 2020. Product development in India by Indian companies will happen with collaborative research and development and IPR sharing through licenses. We are looking at national capacity building through product development and patent uses.

Global Information and Communication Technology Forum for India (GISFI) is a standards setting body involved with standardisation and research. It is a telecommunications standards development body (TSDO) set up with the approval of the DoT. It has peer relationships with ITU, OMA, TTC and a bunch of other SDOs. Internet of Things (IoT), mobility and security are its three major research programmes.

GISFI is working towards defining 5G in India. The 5G standardisation theme in India is called WISDOM (Wireless Innovative System for Dynamic Operating Mega Communications). GISFI is considering the perspective of the Indian user, the network capability, the network architecture, network development and the Indian revenue model, strategic and special purpose networks, inclusive growth, and network security.

However, some India-specific aspects such as illiteracy and lack of basic civic infrastructure need to be considered in the standardisation process.

GISFI plans and stages for 5G definition and adoption

Stage 1 (2014-2018): National agenda for strategic research, innovation and experimentation

Focus on Digital India and Make in India programmes.

Stage 2 (2016-2019): Standardisation

Stage 3 (2017-2021): Product Development

Stage 4 (2019-2023): Early Development

Technical understanding required for IPR issues

Enhancement applicable to general scenarios
- Traffic capacity
- Cell coverage
- Edge cell performance
- Intercell interference
- Network congestion
- Mobility
- Energy consumption
Enhancements targeting new use cases
- machine-type communication
- national security
- public safety services
Carrier aggregation
- Higher throughput owing to intra and inter-band transmission bandwidth of more than 20 MHz.
- Reduced network congestion owing to load-balancing across multiple carriers.
- Improvement in mobility and reduction in inter-cell interference.
Enhanced MIMO
- Improved spatial diversity and multiplexing
- Improved beam-forming
- Multiple access with multi-antenna transmission
Coordinated Multi-Point Operation (CoMP)
- Reduction in intercell interference owing to coordinated scheduling or beamforming (CS/CB)
- Transmission from multiple distribution points (base stations, RRH) in a coordinated way (Dynamic point selection, and Joint transmission)

What do SSOs handle IPR in different parts of the world and what are the issues they face?

GISFI has adopted ITU's IPR policy.

In SSOs, the FRAND principle works well only when participating entities have equal or almost equal IPR clout, and can reciprocate with their own patents every time other entities share their patents. It is difficult to create a balance between entities that only own IPR and those that only consume IPR.

Most of the members of SSOs are IPR owners. The entities that develop [technological] solutions without owning the IPRs are usually not a part of SSOs. However, additional strategies need to be implemented for realising the "Make in India" goal. The goal of zero imports by 2020 can only be achieved if a large number of small companies use these standards to develop products locally. So small manufacturers should be represented even at the highest levels of the standards development body. An IPR policy should be defined/ modified to factor in these needs.

Evaluation of LTE essential patents declared by ETSI

Cyber Creative Institute, June 2013: http://www.cybersoken.com/research/pdf/lte03EN.pdf

A large number of LTE patents are held by a handful of companies. There is no Indian owner of any LTE SEP.

Ericsson sued Apple in the US over infringement of its LTE patents. As of January 2015, Apple countersued Ericsson in a federal court in California and claimed that it did not owe any royalties to the latter.

Apple also stated that Ericsson was calculating royalties on the sale price of the iPhone or iPad, whereas the royalty should be calculated on the value of the baseband chip that runs this technology in the mobile device. If such litigation occurs in India, what would be India's position? If a building block contains the technology pertaining to a patent, then royalty should be calculated on the smallest possible patent practising unit and not the entire product.

Dr. Kumar N. Shivarajan, CTO, Tejas Networks

TSDSI's (Telecommunications Standards Development Society of India) IPR policy states that a member's technology will become a part of a standard as long as the member licenses it on FRAND terms to other members.

By 2017, 70% of the global equipment spend will be on LTE.
TD-LTE subscriber base in India has been projected to reach 67 million by 2017.
Most of the data connections in India are still on 2.5G.
Smartphones have become affordable but 3G continues to languish in India; 4G yet to take off.
The number of 3G connections in India grew from 30 million to 33 million from 2013 to 2014.

Is 5G the answer to India's access problems?

The mobile industry is aiming to go beyond traditional 4G LTE in 2015 and there is increasing focus on adding new bells and whistles to 4G and realise 4G+.

LTE Licensed-assisted access (formerly LTE-Unlicensed)
LTE Direct/ Peer-to-peer
LTE-M for machine to machine communication
CoMP

Countries forming 5G groups to take an early lead:

China: IMT-2020 (5G) Promotion Group
Korea: 5G Forum
EU: 5G Public Private Partnership (5G-PPP)

5G in its current form is souped-up 4G.

Key India-specific requirements for 5G standard development

5G must factor in the Indian requirement for DSL-like connectivity: Always ON, low latency, affordable cost
To minimise costs, 5G must minimise the use of BTS sites and focus on spectral efficiency.
5G should allow virtual network operations enabling multiple operators to use the same physical network infrastructure.
5G must work well in Indian propagation environments: concrete buildings blocking signals, dense barriers.
5G infrastructure should be green as electricity shortfall is a problem. India has 400,000 cell towers. 10% of them are not connected to the electricity grid. More than 70% experience power outages longer than 8 hours per day, and work on diesel-powered generators. As a result, 25% of the operational costs of telcos are their energy bills. India imports 3 billion litres of diesel annually to run these cell sites.

India can try to get a headstart in owning the IPR that would eventually go into the 5G standard.

Prof. Ramakrishna, MHRD Chair, NLSIU, Bengaluru

The attitude of an SSO towards patented technology determines the objective of its IPR policy. For example, an SSO may want to:

Promote widespread implementation of a standard without unnecessary IPR implications.
Ensure transparency and certainty about the declaration of patents and patents' claims as SEPs.
Ensure that every patented technology is available at a reasonable fee, comparable to the value of the technology.

What happens when IP ownership is transferred to another owner? It continues to be a part of the SSO but things get complicated.

New owners, third parties, subsidiaries, and affiliates fall under the purview of the IPR policy, by extension.

IP and Disclosure policies of Indian SDOs

BIS (Bureau of Indian Standards) and TEC (Telecommunication Engineering Centre) do not have IP policies of their own. TEC refers to the ISO/IEC IP policies wherever the technology is equivalent or the same.
GISFI disclosure requirement: Each member is required to inform GISFI in a timely manner of essential IPRs. But members are not under any obligation to conduct IP searches. GISFI's IPR policy is based on that of ETSI.
DOSTI (Development Organization of Standards for Telecommunications in India) is not functional.

IPR policy for open standards in e-governance

The government of India has adopted a royalty free (RF) approach to licensing open standards.

Mandatory Characteristics of Open Standards:

The patent claims necessary to implement the standard should be made available royalty free for the lifetime of the standard.
The standard shall be adapted and maintained by a not-for-profit organisation.
The standard shall have a technology-neutral specification.

The RF approach and the maintenance by a non-profit may be a disincentive for IP owners.

IEEE patent policy:

IEEE invites participants to disclose patent claims essential to a standard under development. Upon disclosure, the patent holder needs to submit a letter of assurance that states:

License(s) will be made available without compensation or at a RAND rate.
A commitment to enforce the essential patent claims against any entity complying with the standard.
Or state its unwillingness or inability to license its essential patent claims.

Common patent policy for ITU-T/ ITU-R/ ISO/ IEC

Recommendations/ deliverables are non-binding -- ensure compatibility of technologies and systems on a worldwide basis.

The "code of practice":

It is desirable that the fullest available information should be disclosed although ITU, ISO or IEC are unable to verify the validity of any such information.

Major types of IPR policies:

Participation-based IPR policies

These are common in small, informal bodies such as consortia.
Members are bound by the terms of membership to commit to licensing SEPs on RAND or RF terms.
SEP holders notify the standards body in case RAND or RF licenses are not available after the draft standard has been published.

Commitment-based IPR policies
- These are commonly followed large, standards setting bodies.
- These bodies identify SEPs to a draft standard through disclosure and submission of licensing commitment.
- Parties may seek alternative solutions or work on a withdrawn standard is the the alternative solutions don't work out.

Basic building blocks of commitment-based IPR policies

Disclosure policies:

Disclosure is important for
- sending requests to SEP holders to make licensing commitments
- ensuring that experts' groups make informed decisions on inclusion of patented technologies
- providing information to prospective standards implementers about the SEP owners

Two forms of disclosure:

A call for patents is made at the start of meetings. This is more informational than binding.
Later, the member states its intentions regarding licensing the patent on RAND terms.

How disclosure obligations arise (and commitments are binding):

IEEE has by-laws that are binding on members.
ITU, IEC, and ISO: It is via a resolution or recommendation.

(Indicative list)

General disclosure procedure:

The nature of disclosure rules concerning self-owned patents depends on the status or the role of the entity.

A "submitter" is a participant in the working group making a conscious decision to submit its technology to the SSO for a license or free of royalty.
A participant in a working group may submit its technology to the SSO free of royalty, on RAND terms, on RAND terms with the right to charge a fee, or with a refusal to license it. (A working group participant who discloses technology is usually a technology expert. When someone who does not have adequate knowledge of patents discloses technology, it has complicated implications.)
A non-working group participant (third-party) may also submit its technology.

ANSI has left it to the accredited SSO to decide the terms of disclosure for participants of working groups. It has not laid out a policy in this regard. Other organisations have laid out obligations on the submitter to disclose SEPs.

Nature of disclosure terms for patents owned by third-parties:

ETSI: It is obligatory.

ITU/ ISO: Obligatory only for participants of the working groups.

IEEE: Entirely voluntary

Non-essential claims are excluded from disclosure. Pending patent applications are not.

Working groups prefer early disclosure so that they may adopt or discard the claim as early as possible in the standard setting process.

ITU: Disclosure from the outset

IEEE: During meetings of the working group

ETSI: "Timely manner"

AFSI: At a sufficiently mature level

There is no mandate for updating the disclosure in case a standard evolves.

Most SSOs make disclosed patents public. Failure to disclose patents may result in accusations of abuse of monopoly or anti-trust/ anti-competitive activities.

It is difficult to identify all potentially essential patents due to the complexity of specifications.

Some SSOs don't require IP disclosure at all. The obligations to license on FRAND terms would be sufficient.

Only 16% patents declared as SEPs are actually SEPs, according to a study.

It makes sense for rightsholders to go for blanket disclosures instead of disclosure of specific patents.

Vinod Dhall, ex-chairperson of the Competition Commission of India (CCI):

Our competition law is new, so there aren't any cases pertaining to patent litigation and involving the competition law, which we can treat as precedents. In one of the mobile phone patent litigation cases in India, the implementer has approached the CCI claiming that the licensor has been abusing its dominant position in the market by charging unreasonable royalties.

The Delhi High Court has passed interim orders restraining the CCI from deciding these cases. Our appeal to the courts is that these patent infringement lawsuits should not be viewed in isolation. They should not be viewed as merely contractual issues between the licensor and the licensee. They should be seen in the context of their economic effects and their adverse effect on competition. The CCI should be enabled to deal with such cases.

Questions-answers round:

What are the criteria for declaring a patent an SEP?

T. Ramakrishnan: SSOs have no role in declaring that a patent is an SEP. The SEP holder declares that their patent is essential to a technical standard. Most of the time, the SEP may turn out to be a non-SEP at a later stage. Statistically, 16 out 100 claimed SEPs are actually SEPs. There is no way for SSOs to tell if a patent is an SEP. IP policies of most SSOs state that they don't search [if a patent is an SEP]. The members of SSOs are under no obligation to search.

The commitment to license an SEP on FRAND terms is more important to an SSO [than determining if the patent is indeed an SEP].

Can compulsory licensing be implemented with government intervention in India so that the Central Government can fix a royalty and put an end to patent litigation?

Matheson: The phrase "compulsory license" sends a shiver down every corporate's spine every time it is used. International experience is that the judicial system has been the only forum where we have been able to have due process to enable us to construct cases properly in order to explain to the judge or to the jurors how the system works. That has produced very sensible solutions to this problem. Handing it off to the government to institute a compulsory license wouldn't be fair to the SEP holders.

With respect to the "safe harbour" approach towards SEP-based injunctions, what does the licensee need to do to prove to the courts that it is a willing licensee, in the event that licensing negotiations fail or take a long time?

Matheson: It gets down to the licensee showing its willingness to negotiate. The licensee cannot make a half-hearted attempt and decline to negotiate or decline the licensor's offer and then disappear. They should physically engage in the negotiation. If and when it gets to a judicial environment, the judges know when people are telling stories and when parties are bona fide. They can tell a ruse when they see one, and I think it is one of the things you observe in practice.

Ramakrishnan: The licensee should be able to demonstrate that it is willing to pay the royalty and should deposit an amount towards royalty. One recommendation from AIPP states that instead of using the terms "willing licensee" and "willing licensor", use "good faith response". For "good faith" we have very well established criteria. The entire licensing process should end within 12 months of starting. If the negotiations fail or if the process takes longer, then they should agree upon an arbitrator to fix FRAND terms. These are indicators that demonstrate the licensee being a "willing licensee" or a "good faith" licensee.

Often technology changes before the legal action can be taken or the lawsuit completed, and the patent over which litigation has happened may no longer be relevant to the technology. How do patent holders deal with this situation?

S.K. Murthy, Research Scholar, NLSIU: Even if the technology becomes obsolete, damages can be claimed retrospectively.

Matheson: You have a commitment to a FRAND solution, so that when you enter the protracted negotiation, you know that at the end of it you will get a fair solution. That's not always the case when you are dealing outside the FRAND world. You're dealing with a FRAND incumbent, not with unlicensed patents.

Why is putting a time limit to negotiations not a good idea? Also, IEEE seems to have done well by taking the threat of negotiations out of its way. Is it practical in India, because injunction is still the most potent weapon to protect intellectual property rights in India currently?

Matheson: Licensing is incredibly complex. There can be claims to the validity of the patent, there are claim charts to be drawn, there is expert evidence to be put together. Litigation over patents can take 2 to 3 years. To say that there must be a solution [arrived at] within a smaller framework gives the licensor the opportunity to wait around till the end of that period and assert its patents through an injunction. If you're leaving injunction at the table, you will not have a fair solution. The licensee will always be at a major disadvantage. The IEEE solution is a good one because it has taken the time limit away, but at the same time the policies that would adopt that solution need to include the discipline to ensure that the negotiations are bona fide.

What percentage of the sale price should be provisioned by a product developer for royalties? Can a mechanism be drawn up for this purpose?

Justice Ratnakala: Definitely. Such a mechanism should be drawn up in the near future.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/conference-on-standards-settings-organizations-sso-and-frand-nlsiu

Compilation of Mobile Phone Patent Litigation Cases in India

rohini — 2018-02-08T14:41:17Z

This working paper is an attempt to chronicle information about big-ticket lawsuits pertaining to mobile technology patents filed in India. All information presented in this paper has been gathered from publicly available sources. Interns Nayana Dasgupta, Sampada Nayak and Suchisubhra Sarkar (in alphabetical order) provided invaluable research assistance. This paper was first published as a blog post on the CIS website on March 15, 2015. It was periodically updated till October 31, 2017 to reflect new developments in the different lawsuits at the Delhi High Court and the cases with the Competition Commission of India.

Abstract

Nearly three years after litigation over patents and designs associated with big-ticket mobile technology started in the US, the first salvo in the patent wars was fired in India. Sweden-based Ericsson, a provider of communications infrastructure and services, sued home-grown budget smartphone manufacturer Micromax in early 2013. Patent litigation in the arena of mobile phone technology has steadily risen since. Lei Jun, the chairman of China's largest smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi has said that facing a patent lawsuit "can be considered a rite of passage for a company that is coming of age". This paper is an attempt to chronicle lawsuits pertaining to mobile technology patents filed in India. The first part of this paper, “Compilation of lawsuits” is an attempt to chronicle the significant developments in big-ticket lawsuits pertaining to mobile technology patents filed in India. The second part, “Commonalities and differences in the lawsuits” is an attempt to join the dots between the developments that were either remarkably common or notably different. All information presented in this paper has been gathered from publicly available sources and is up-to-date till the time of writing (October 31, 2017). This paper has been published as a part of the Pervasive Technologies project at the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS).

View paper on SSRN.

Access the court orders and other references in the paper.

Edit logs

Edited, April 2, 2015: To add section "6. Vringo vs. ZTE"

Edited, April 3, 2015: To add section "7. Vringo vs. Asus"

Edited, October 23, 2015: To add sections "8. Ericsson vs. iBall", "9. Ericsson vs. Competition Commission of India", "10. Ericsson vs. Lava". To update "Ericsson vs. Micromax" from “Micromax has challenged……”

Edited, April 15, 2016: To update "9. Ericsson vs Competition Commission of India... In a judgement dated March 30, 2016, the court dismissed all the writ petitions and applications pertaining to the role of the CCI before it and made these observations..."; "8. Ericsson vs iBall"; "10. Ericsson vs. Lava"; and "6. Vringo vs. ZTE".

Edited, April 29, 2016: To update "Ericsson vs. Xiaomi...On April 22, 2016, the Delhi High Court vacated the interim order passed in December 2014..."

Edited, January 13, 2017: To update "Ericsson vs. Gionee... In July 2014..."

Edited, February 8, 2018: To upload copy of working paper.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/compilation-of-mobile-phone-patent-litigation-cases-in-india

A Selection of Tweets on How to Make Crowdmaps Effectual for Mapping Violence against Women

rohini — 2015-03-12T00:42:08Z

This is a collection of tweets by Rohini Lakshane on making crowdmaps more effective for mapping gender violence. The compilation of tweets has been republished by GenderIT.org.

For more see the original published on the website of Gender IT.org on February 19, 2015.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/gender-it-february-19-2015-selection-tweets-how-make-crowdmaps-effectual-mapping-violence-against-women