Hari Subramaniam is an Attorney‐at-Law and a Registered Patent Agent with a background in physics, chemistry, biological and life sciences, and medicine. He is the Managing Principal of Subramaniam & Associates, a leading IP boutique firm founded in 1998, and has been in practice for the last 39 years, specializing in all aspects of intellectual property law.
In the course of his career, Mr Subramaniam has filed, prosecuted, defended, opposed and/or enforced directly or in a supervisory capacity over 40,000 patent matters in India and abroad, relating to all areas of technology. He has had several “firsts” to his credit and has been widely acclaimed for his skills in providing solutions to the most complex issues during prosecution and opposition. He was the first person to initiate black box (mail box) applications in India under the GATT/TRIPS Agreement for pharmaceutical products. He has advised the Governments of India, Mauritius, Bangladesh, China and Nepal on their IP laws. He has been called upon several times as an expert witness before the Joint Parliamentary Committee for the amendment of patent laws in India. He has been instrumental in the development of IP laws in India.
Mr Subramaniam is the longest-serving APAA Council Member from India, and has spearheaded the Patent Committee of the Indian Group in the APAA Standing Committee on four different occasions. He has served as International Vice-President of APAA for several years, and is also part of the Advisory Council of APAA International. In addition, he is part of the Workshop Committee of APAA International, and was Co-Chair of the Organising Committee for the APAA Council Meetings in 2005 and 2018, attended by delegates from over 65 countries. He is the President of the APAA Indian Chapter and is also the only person from India to be elected to this office twice.
Mr Subramaniam is regularly invited as faculty or speaker at several seminars and conferences as well as at patent awareness workshops conducted by the Government of India, WIPO, American Bar Association, Minneapolis Bar Association, and international organizations such as AIPPI (the Association Internationale pour la Protection de la Propriété Intellectuelle) and APAA (the Asian Patent Attorneys Association), Indian Patent Office, and patent offices and universities across the world. He speaks at a minimum four international fora every year across the globe on diverse IP-related issues. He has been on the Pharma and Biotech Committee of AIPPI for several years and has been invited several times as speaker for the AIPPI Pharma workshops. He has authored several papers relating to key aspects of intellectual property laws. He is also often called upon to train Patent Examiners and Judicial Officers.
