Intellectual property work in India has blossomed in recent years as domestic and international companies have looked long and hard at their portfolios in the wake of the global financial crisis and stepped up measures to protect their IP rights.

Although the incoming Madrid Protocol is expected to cause a temporary dip in trade mark filing work from foreign companies, IP practitioners are on the whole optimistic of continued growth in this area of law.

Patent litigation is viewed particularly closely by lawyers, with many sharing the view that this will be a lucrative field in the coming years. This particularly contentious area of practice, as evidenced by court battles such as Roche and Cipla, has been closely covered by the media in India, with cross-border cases such as the Enercon case particularly prevalent.

The fast-tracking of IP cases and trials has been especially refreshing for IP lawyers in India. The emergence of expedited trials has been as a result of a ‘four month trial’ guideline laid down by the Supreme Court a few years ago. In high profile matters, such as that between Roche and Cipla, the collection of evidence concluded in a record 18 months – with the matter set to be argued in late 2011.

IP applications have been gradually increasing over the past few years and the IP Office of India has sought to address this by increasing its examiner numbers in order to meet this growing demand for quality examinations.

Many of the leading IP practitioners in the country represent parties involved in long-running cases regarding royalties that are entitled to authors and composers in India. In many of these cases, artists and composers have claimed that they have been shut out of receiving their due royalties from the Indian Performing Rights Society (IPRS). The IPRS is controlled by music companies who also control the Phonographic Performance Limited (PPL), which collects rights on behalf of the owners of sound recordings. Lawyers say that the copyright system in India is in need of an overhaul, with reforms expected to be discussed in the monsoon session of Parliament that runs from July to September.

Leading intellectual property lawyers

Pravin Anand
Anand & Anand

Rahul Chaudhry
Lall Lahiri & Salhotra

Rajendra Kumar
K & S Partners

Chander Lall
Lall & Sethi

Ranjan Negi
Amarchand & Mangaldas & Suresh A Shroff & Co

Suresh Poojary
Media Lexicon

Saikrishna Rajagopal
Saikrishna & Associates

Dev Robinson
Amarchand & Mangaldas & Suresh A Shroff & Co

Gayatri Roy
Luthra & Luthra

Jyoti Sagar
J Sagar Associates

Anuradha Salhotra
Lall Lahiri & Salhotra

Manish Saurastri
Krishna & Saurastri

Archana Shanker
Anand & Anand

Patodia Shiraz
Dua Associates

Manisha Singh Nair
Lex Orbis

Hariharan Subramaniam
Subramaniam Nataraj & Associates

Yagnesh Trivedi
Y J Trivedi & Co

Source: Asialaw Leading Lawyers 2011