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The Information and Communication Technology (ICT) platforms that allow copyright owners to reach a large number of users and increase their economic fortune, contritely; enable the potential infringers preferring free‐riding to upload and distribute copyrighted materials. Under various theories of direct and secondary copyright infringement, the platforms now loosely called intermediaries are likely to become liable for copyright infringement. Like other jurisdictions, Indian law contains specific provisions to protect the intermediaries from such unanticipated liability. However, this intermediary liability and immunity law got muddied by inconsistent interpretations of the two operating statutes. Taking clues from the cross‐jurisdictional insights, this paper looks at the interpretative conundrum. Furthermore, the paper contends how the preferred interpretation is incompatible with the Berne Convention and Agreement on Trade‐Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights recommended three‐step doctrine for creating copyright exceptions. Ultimately, this paper advocates for a legislative intervention to clear the clouds of confusion in view of India's endeavour to enact a new law on ICT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inventive step is the sine qua non for the grant of a patent. Arguably, this subjective evaluation of the claimed invention ensures a sufficient leap forward to the existing technology. The footnote appended to Article 27 of the TRIPS Agreement contemplates that inventive step may be deemed tobe synonymous with "non-obvious". Thus, the footnote has left it open-ended for the WTO members to speculate on may or may not situations or entirely rule out this apparent inventive step/non-obviousness equivalence suggestion. TRIPS Agreement does not define inventive step or lay down the standards to be followed in construing the person from whose perspective the claimed invention has to be looked into for inventive step/non-obviousness determination. In the U.S., Congress and the Courts have consistently interpreted "non-obviousness" as technical advancement to the concerned discipline. When it comes to Indian law, there is an apparentclarity, but when delved deep, the outcome lacks crucial elements of predictability. Section 2(1)(ja) of the Indian Patents Act, 1970 is framed in such a way so that it gives an impression to the reader that technical advancement and being non-obvious to a person skilled in the art are two distinct concepts. The US Courts always gave economic considerations a secondary status in the determination of the non-obviousness of a given invention. Indian patent statute specifically mentions economic significanceand places it as an alternative to technical advancementwithoutclarifying the interconnection of the two connotations. The authors intend to understand, in what way technical advance can be considered as a completely separate standalone criterion for patentability in conjunction with non-obviousness. Furthermore, as a step forward, the authors want to expound on whether economic consideration alone, without even requiring non-obviousness, can fulfil the inventive step criterion in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid development of artificial intelligence systems in the last decade, legal liability arising out of the interaction between humans and artificial intelligence systems may become commonplace in the near future. While there are many academic opinions demanding for a new legal framework to address the new technology of artificial intelligence systems, this paper endeavours to draw from traditional tort law and build a realistic and workable structure of ascribing liability arising from interactions between humans and artificial intelligence systems. However, it is limited to the liability arising from negligence and hence primarily focuses on the tort of negligence. To this end, first, it analyses the application of the reasonable person test on matters involving interactions with artificial intelligence systems. Second, it deals with the application of previously known methods of calculating risk in human interactions with artificial intelligence systems. Third, it deals with defences against the tort of negligence claims and their applications on matters involving interactions with AI systems. And finally, it briefly looks into causation and how to determine if a negligence claim has merit or is trivial. The paper concludes that the liability in a negligence claim for an injury occurring during a human interaction with an artificial intelligence system will be attached to one or more of three parties: the developer, the manufacturer, and/or the user. Any other parties simply would not have enough causal link with the injury for it to be a legitimate claim. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between tightly coupled systems, complexity and the potential for disaster is well established. Research into complex systems has led to a greater appreciation of their instability. However, in [...]