For those following our updates on social media, we’ve been sharing our list of speakers and their focus areas for the inaugural SpicyIP Summer School, and it is truly looking to be an amazing experience, with a fantastic lineup (details below). Currently, for this post, we’d like to just give a round-up of what’s in there waiting for the first batch of SpicyIP Summer School, and also have some exciting news up ahead!
Since our announcement, we’ve received some wonderful applications for the inaugural SpicyIP Summer School programme. Interestingly, we’ve also had several inquiries from individuals outside our target audience of students and recent graduates. Considering this interest, we have decided to open a few slots to those who may have graduated earlier as well, and who are looking to get into (or back into) the field of IP and would like to participate in this cohort!
To ensure that those interested in the new expanded audience also get adequate time to apply, we are also extending the deadline by 1 week, i.e., from 15th May to 22nd May (11:59 PM). Please note that the Summer School is a residential programme and will be held from June 21st to 29th in Whitefield, Bengaluru.
Who Will Be There
Curated to cultivate critical pluralism in understanding IP laws and policy on the two thematic areas of The ‘Pharma Stack’, and ‘Creativity, Culture, and Contracts’, the SpicyIP Summer School aims to offer wide and varied perspectives, including through the lenses of political economy, markets, public welfare, and knowledge ecosystems. Here is Dr Zakir Thomas, one of the curators of the SpicyIP Summer School, (and formerly – Registrar of Copyrights, Founding Director of CSIR’s ‘Open Source Drug Discovery’ project, and Indian Revenue Services officer) foretelling the Summer School experience!
To make this possible, the sessions will be led by our core faculty members as well as our expert speakers, blended together with support from our internal curators and organising team.
The Core Faculty comprises Ms. Zara Kaushik, Mr. Murali Neelakantan, Mr. Sandeep Rathod, and Ms. Manojna Yeluri.
Complementing the sessions by the core faculty members, the Summer School will see expert sessions offered by top legal as well as industry minds! (names arranged in alphabetical order of their first names):
Aakanksha Kumar (Associate Professor, Jindal Global Law School), talking on personality right, and productive cultural consumption in a semiotic democracy
Adarsh Ramanujan (Independent Practitioner), taking a session on patent litigation: offbeat yet critical issues
Ameet Datta (Founder, ADP Law), taking a session on Amendments to the 2012 Copyright Act, artists’ rights, and a Life in Law
Ashwani Balayan (Partner and Practice Chair, ALG Law Offices India) talking on patent claims v. design claims, as well as on trade secrets
Chetali Rao (Sr. Scientific Researcher and Legal Advisor, Third World Network), leading a 1-day patent workshop on behalf of TWN
Kailash Nadh (CTO, Zerodha), leading a session on free and open source software, open data, and software patents
Kruttika Vijay (Partner, Ira Law), taking special sessions on civil procedure under the Commercial Courts Act, presenting arguments in Court, and client communication
Nikhil Narendran (Partner, Trilegal), talking on GenAI and copyright law, fair dealing, and transformative use
Prashant Reddy (IP Scholar and Writer), taking a session on identifying issues in investigational research
Sheja Ehtesham (Managing Partner, ALG Law Offices India), talking on IP in outer space, and on career development in law
Siddarth Abraham (Vocalist, Blind Grafitti), sharing his perspective from 2 decades of performing experience
Keep an eye on this space as we reveal more Expert Speakers who will be coming in for the Summer School!
Alongside these sessions, the organisers of the Summer School — Dr. Zakir Thomas, Swaraj Paul Barooah, and Deepali Nayak — will conduct breakout sessions designed to further help the students reflect and engage with the lessons from the main sessions. The organisers will be assisted by Praharsh Gour and Akshat Agrawal in these breakout sessions. These will include group exercises, Q&A sessions, time for writing and reflection, quizzes, panel discussions on careers and higher studies, and more.
Even as we finalise further details, we are immensely grateful to ALG India Law Offices, Swathi Sukumar, Ameet Datta and Adarsh Ramanujan for their immediate commitment towards supporting this inaugural edition of the SpicyIP Summer School!
We have already started accepting applications for the Summer School, and seats are quickly filling! So apply now to secure your spot!
For more information, check out the brochure here or reach out to us at academy[at]spicyip[dot]com.