Delhi High Court Justice Prathiba M Singh has called for the establishment of dedicated intellectual property (IP) courts across India.
Speaking at a discussion on Shaping the Legal Architecture of Viksit Bharat 2047, Justice Singh suggested amending the Commercial Courts Act to establish specialised IP courts at the district and High Court levels.
“I have no doubt in my mind that we need to create uniform IP courts across the country,” she said.
She explained that specialised courts would facilitate judicial training and the development of consistent jurisprudence.
The discussion was organised by the University of Chicago Center in Delhi, Nani Palkhivala Foundation and General Counsels’ Association of India (GCAI). It was moderated by Sanjeev Gemawat.
Justice Singh also proposed the creation of a national JUDICIAL STACK, on the lines of INDIA STACK which could improve judicial efficiency and ease of judicial administration.
“If we create the Judicial Stack and give API access, newer solutions could be found considering the pendency of 5 crore cases in our courts,” she said. The concern is that this does not include the pendencies across tribunals, Revenue authorities etc.
She explained that access to judicial data through application programming interfaces (APIs) could facilitate research, technological innovation and data-driven judicial reforms.
Justice Singh, who chairs the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Advisory Board of Judges, referred to discussions at the ninth WIPO Intellectual Property Judges Forum, held on October 14 and 15 in Geneva.
According to WIPO, the forum attracted registrations from over 970 judges worldwide, with 167 participating in person.
She said that the discussion was focussed on Artificial Intelligence in judiciaries across the world. Justice Singh said that in response to a questionnaire at the forum, 52 percent of judges had expressed interest in using AI to draft judgments.
Turning to IP enforcement, Justice Singh identified three developments behind India’s progress – innovative judicial remedies, the Commercial Courts Act and the establishment of Intellectual Property Divisions in High Courts.
“Yes, judiciary cannot innovate laws it cannot innovate regulations it can, within the existing legal framework and architecture innovate remedies,” she said.
She cited remedies involving well-known trademarks, trans-border reputation and online infringement as examples of judicial innovation. Remedies such as Dynamic injunctions and Dynamic + injunctions as also remedies to curb online infringement were some examples she cited to show how the Judiciary innovates to an evolving techno-economic era.
Justice Singh also referred to the Supreme Court’s 2013 Novartis judgment as an important development in pharmaceutical patent jurisprudence.
She further called for a dedicated law protecting trade secrets, as recommended by the Law Commission, particularly given the growing importance of data in the age of artificial intelligence.
On civil litigation reforms, Justice Singh suggested extending procedural innovations introduced through the Commercial Courts Act to ordinary civil cases.
In the GST regime, she said that while GST collections have increased, there needs to be quicker resolution of GST refunds as well, considering the large quantum of writ petitions that are filed seeking such refunds.
Her remarks underscored the need for the judiciary and lawmakers to keep pace with emerging technologies while continuing to strengthen IP enforcement and make the justice system more efficient.
