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Perspective is everything

Is your glass half full?

As India shakes off the effects of the devastation wrought by a cruel second wave of covid-19, there are reasons for optimism. The vaccination campaign is picking up, investments into tech companies continue to flow in and a record number of companies have conducted IPOs successfully.

Yet, with questions about the future of º¬Ðß²ÝÉçÇø growth story ever-present, it is still a matter of perspective ¨C the glass can appear half full or half empty. Covid-19 has revealed how haphazard the country¡¯s growth story has been so far, while also highlighting the complexity of the many challenges that lie ahead. Whether there is the will and the wisdom to take on these challenges is also a matter of perspective.

This month¡¯s Cover story provides an analysis of the state of the legal market. While almost nobody was ¡°left untouched by the tragic events that unfolded¡± in the pandemic, as Ameeta Verma Duggal at New Delhi-based DGS Associates says, there is evidence that progress was made on employee well-being. Intellectual property (IP) boutique Obhan & Associates reports that encouraging its members to retreat to premises it rented in the hills and disconnect from work has led to a ¡°boost in morale and happiness¡±.

While the ability to work remotely has increased, the practical challenges of executing transactions have also been somewhat lessened with the acceptance of e-contracts and e-stamping. As Jayesh H at Juris Corp says: ¡°e-stamping has been a boon to the financial sector and eased the process of the execution of documents.¡± There is every sign that demand for legal services continues to rise, but with clients becoming increasingly cost-conscious, will covid-19 and its aftermath result in more work being farmed out to external legal practitioners?

This issue also includes our annual India Business Law Directory, featuring detailed profiles of 109 Indian law firms. The directory is also available online (at law.asia/india) in English, Chinese, Japanese and Korean. We hope this will be a valuable resource for our readers.

The Briefing this month provides insights into the antitrust authority¡¯s INR2 billion (USD27 million) fine on Maruti Suzuki for indulging in resale price maintenance. As we detail, the Competition Commission of º¬Ðß²ÝÉçÇø decision could impact manufacturers across all industries relying on a dealership network, as their exclusive arrangements will need to be examined. This article also examines how foreign-owned digital media companies are reacting to the recently introduced cap on foreign ownership. While Yahoo has closed its news websites, others are still assessing options.

In Putting it in your Zoom, we reveal an expert¡¯s tips for engaging virtual audiences in Zoom sessions and webinars. This includes looking at your camera when you are on a Zoom call, and also speaking in short bursts. Avoiding long-winded sentences is important as audiences remember what they think about, and apparently can only think when there is silence. The advice is to treat virtual interactions as a two-way conversation and to speak ¡°as if you are talking to a very bright but ignorant art student¡±.

Writing in this month¡¯s Vantage point?Bishwarup Chakrabarti, GC at digital media and film production company Eros Digital, asks if non-fungible tokens (NFTs) ¨C units of data stored on a digital ledger based on blockchain, which recently has been soaring in popularity ¨C could reignite the old debate that artists should profit from the resale of their work. As he details, NFTs provide the owner with a proof of ownership that is separate from copyright, and in so doing the blockchain-based technological product highlights the fact that once a product has been sold under the authorship of the IP owner, its resale, rental, lending and any other commercial use cannot be restricted by the owner.

This month¡¯s Intelligence report?provides insights from some of º¬Ðß²ÝÉçÇø top IP experts and in-house counsel ¨C imparted in the course of a recent virtual roundtable organized by India Business Law Journal and IP firm LexOrbis ¨C into the promises and perils of the country¡¯s IP ecosystem. While they were unanimous in their concerns about the wider belt of the abolition of the IP Appellate Board earlier this year, they were just as concerned about efforts being made to protect IP rights.

Siemens º¬Ðß²ÝÉçÇø head of IP Pranay Prabhaguneer¡¯s view was that everything done so far ¡°has been a clear eyeswash focusing on the US patent and watchdog, and the reports that the US trade and commerce market has made, and to say that the IP system has improved¡±.

Ramachandran Lakshminarayanan, head of IP rights and innovation management at Samsung R&D Institute, argues that patent insights relating to startups need more visibility, while Faiz Rahman, head of IP at Infosys, is of the opinion that ¡°the law, as it stands, the procedures as they stand, the scope, etc., everything needs to be reimagined¡±.

Meanwhile, commitment on whether legislation has kept up, Debolina Partap, group GC at Wockhardt, says that covid-19 has also shown that ¡°as far as Indians are concerned, and Indian lawyers are concerned: we can manage anything at any time¡±.

No doubt perspective matters greatly when deciding if the glass is half full or half empty