Piyush Patil, MMM’s Shankarrao Chavan Law College, Pune
ABSTRACT
Under the TRIPS Agreement (Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights), there was not any specifically expressed obligation to have a separate tribunal to deal with cases of intellectual property; but a number of countries found it convenient to set up separate special bodies to deal with the matters related to intellectual property. However, on the 13st of August, 2021, The Tribunal Reforms Bill, 2021 received the president’s assent which amended various Acts and scrapped several tribunals including the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB) in India. In its 17 years of existence, it faced several problems, mostly relating to appointments.
Instead of rectifying the underlying problems in the constitution of tribunals, the government has made a move which might have placed an additional burden on the already overburdened courts. This move has and will cause further complexities and will affect the existing judicial structure. The whole situation is perplexing so as to how the cases will be handled with fewer judicial bodies when they were unable to do it with tribunals.
