Nikhil Krishnamurthy

Senior Partner | Bengaluru

Practice Area

Industry Sectors

Education

Nikhil Krishnamurthy heads the Intellectual Property and Media and Entertainment practice groups at K Law. With over two decades of specialised practice, he has an illustrious client portfolio, having represented prominent names in Media and Entertainment, and Information Technology. He has advised several music publishers, collecting societies, authors, composers, radio stations, film production houses, record labels, actors, performing artists, fashion designers, models, intermediaries, and internet market platforms.

He has also advised on various niche Information Technology issues, represented clients in matters of electronic trespass and hacking, and has considerable experience in IP litigation, prosecution, licensing, and enforcement matters, including those involving theft of trade secrets and confidential information, intermediary liability, take-down notices, domain name disputes, phishing, framing, linking, and deployment of web crawlers in breach of terms of use. He has managed the IP enforcement portfolios of several luxury brands and software companies.

  • Loreena McKennitt v. Deepak Dev – Represented the plaintiff in India’s first lawsuit by a foreign singer-songwriter against an Indian composer for infringement of copyright in musical compositions
  • Adobe, Autodesk and Microsoft v. Lakhotia Computer Centre – Represented the plaintiffs in the first-ever suit in India concerning software end-user piracy
  • Adnan Firat v. Arko Pravo Mukherjee – Represented the plaintiff in India’s second lawsuit by a foreign singer-songwriter against an Indian composer for infringement of copyright in musical compositions
  • Music Broadcast v. Phonographic Performance Ltd – Represented the plaintiff in India’s first case on compulsory licensing of music for radio broadcasting
  • National Geographic v. Mulla Yaffe – Represented the plaintiff in India’s first case concerning framing
  •  Daler Mehndi v. Rajesh Jhaveri – Represented the plaintiff in India’s first case on appropriation of a celebrity’s name as a domain name
  • Devki Chitra v. Saregama – Represented the plaintiff in India’s first case concerning revocation of assignment of copyright and determination of the length of a copyright assignment
  • Super Cassettes v. Worldspace – Represented the plaintiff in India’s first case involving cross-border satellite broadcasting of music 
  • NASSCOM v. Ajay Kapoor – Represented the plaintiff in India’s first case of phishing
  • Time Inc. v. Lokesh Srivastava – Represented the plaintiff in India’s first award of damages in a trademark infringement proceeding 
  • Flipkart Internet v Amazon Seller Services – Represented the plaintiff in a suit against the defendant on the grounds of breach of contract, electronic trespass, infringement of trademark and copyright and obtained an ex parte order restraining the defendant 
  • Xiaomi Inc. v India Infosec Consortium (Delhi High Court) – Represented the plaintiff, successfully obtaining an interim order restraining a defendant from releasing server logs, account usernames, and passwords of millions of Xiaomi users obtained through hacking, at a conference to be held in New Delhi 
  • Instrumental in the first compulsory license for music broadcast
  • Litigation on cross-border satellite broadcast of music
  • Law on infringement of a foreign composer’s copyrights
  • Litigation on celebrity rights of publicity and defamation
  • John Doe enforcement
  • Software end-user infringement
  • Recognised as a Distinguished Practitioner for Intellectual Property by asia law Profiles 2024 and 2025
  • Recognised for Patent Prosecution by IAM Patent 1000 in 2023
  • Top 100 Individual Lawyers in the Above 10 Years’ Experience category in the Forbes India Legal Powerlis 2022
  • Leading IP Lawyer by Chambers and Partners Asia-Pacific 2023 - 2025
  • Recommended for Patent Prosecution by IAM Patent1000 2023 - 2025
  • Recognised as an Outstanding IP Practitioner in the World Intellectual Property Review Leaders Directory 2022
  • Ranked among the Top 50 TMT Lawyers in Asia by Asian Legal Business (Thomson Reuters) 2022
  • Ranked among the Top TMT / Fintech Lawyers in India by Asian Legal Business (Thomson Reuters) 2021 and 2022
  • Ranked among the Top 100 Individual Lawyers in the Above 10 Years’ Experience category in the Forbes India Legal Powerlist 2021
  • Ranked among the Super 50 Lawyers in India by Asian Legal Business (Thomson Reuters) 2021
  • Named one of India’s Top Lawyers and included in India Business Law Journal’s A-List 2021
  • Coveted IP Experts for India by Asia IP 2020 - 2022
  • Ranked among the Top 15 IP Lawyers in India by Asian Legal Business (Thomson Reuters) 2020 - 2025
  • Listed in Band 4 for Intellectual Property by Chambers and Partners Asia-Pacific 2020
  • Recognised as one of the “top guys in the Bangalore market” for IP advice by Chambers and Partners Asia-Pacific in 2019 
  • Market-leading Lawyer for Intellectual Property, IT, Telco, and Media by Asia Law Leading Lawyers 2016
  • Leading IP Lawyer by Chambers and Partners Asia-Pacific 2016
  • Listed among the 40 Under 45 Leading Lawyers in India by Indian Lawyer 250 in 2016
  • Anonymous (Chambers and Partners APAC 2017) Nikhil Krishnamurthy of K Law is really good for trademark and domain name matters, including litigation. He is very prompt in his responses, thorough and very particular about consistent quality.
  • Anonymous (Chambers and Partners APAC 2016) Nikhil Krishnamurthy of K Law is highly regarded by sources and noted for his skill in copyright matters…we respect him a lot. His forte has always been copyright law, and he is also very good on the media and technology side of things.
  • Member of the Bar Council of Delhi
  • Member of the Asian Patent Attorneys Association (APAA)
  • Member of the International Association of Entertainment Lawyers (IAEL), UK
  • Invited to speak at the MIDEM conference at Cannes
  • Conducting training programs for publishers at the prestigious Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) 
  • Invited by the Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD) to conduct IP training programs for Judges on copyright issues
  • Authored an India-focused chapter in a Research Handbook on Intellectual Property Licensing
  • Authored articles on Indian copyright amendments, collective licensing at the ISP level, mechanical reproduction rights, performing rights, and artists’ resale share rights
  • B.A LL.B., (Hons.) National Law School of India University, Bangalore (1997)
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