The wait is finally over! After carefully reviewing a range of thoughtful and insightful entries from participants across the country, many of which were extremely closely contested, we are delighted to announce the results of the SpicyIP–jhana Blogpost Writing Competition, 2025. The quality of submissions made the evaluation process an especially difficult one, with several entries being extremely closely contested. We were heartened by the enthusiasm, creativity, and analytical rigour displayed by participants, and would like to thank everyone who took the time to contribute to the competition.
The competition saw submissions on a wide range of contemporary IP issues, reflecting both doctrinal depth and thoughtful engagement with questions shaping the Indian IP and innovation ecosystem. We are especially grateful to jhana for collaborating with us on this initiative and for supporting young researchers and writers through access to their research platform.
After careful evaluation by the SpicyIP team, based on the criteria set out in the competition announcement, we are pleased to announce the winners of the competition:
First Prize: Vishno Sudheendra “Copyright Maximalism by Design: Rethinking DPIIT’s Licensing-Centric Approach to AI Training”
Engaging with Part I of the DPIIT committee’s working paper on the intersection of Artificial Intelligence and Copyright, Vishno Sudheendra’s entry for the SpicyIP-Jhana Blogpost Writing Competition critically examined its copyright-maximalist approach and questioned whether copyright is the right tool to respond to the diffuse and systemic impact of generative AI. He argued that solutions to these challenges lie beyond copyright law, and explored the viability of a fair-sharing arrangement as a more appropriate response.
Second Prize: Anjali Tripathi “Not a Saathi After All: Why Sanchar Saathi Rings Alarm for Trade Secrets”
The Sanchar Saathi application has largely been analysed as a privacy issue. However, as Anjali Tripathi argued in this entry for the SpicyIP–jhana Blogpost Writing Competition, it raises a more serious and underexplored concern, one that could directly threaten the protection of trade secrets and confidential business information in India’s smartphone-first economy.
Third Prize: Rushil Verma “Beyond PDFs and Portals: Building Explainable IP for a Transparent and Inclusive Indian Innovation Ecosystem”
While India’s IP system has made significant strides in digital accessibility, Rushil Verma, in his submission for the SpicyIP–Jhana Blogpost Writing Competition 2025, explained how it continues to fall short on intelligibility. He suggested that integrating “Explainable IP” could help transform patent and trademark databases from mere document repositories into inclusive, user-centric public knowledge systems.
Notable Mentions:
Given how close it was between the top five submissions, we would also like to give a notable mention to the following entries, in no particular order:
Nivedita Krishnakumar: “Royalty Rajas: Reformation of the Copyright Amendment Act, 2012”
Rudra Pandey “A Terrorization of the Terroir”
The SpicyIP team would like to give our heartiest congratulations to the winners, and our gratitude to all the participants for their enthusiastic participation!