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IP Case Digest · Copyright Act s.13(1)(a)

Section 13(1)(a), Copyright Act: case law

3 judgments of the Delhi High Court applying Copyright Act s.13(1)(a), from 2023–2024, each with a headnote by BRB Legal.

3judgments
1court
2023–2024years

Informa Markets India Private Limited v. M/s 4PInfotech & Anr.

Delhi High Court · Rectification allowed

Rectification allowed and the copyright registration for a literary work titled Virtual Expo removed from the Register. The registration was at best a precis of a concept available in the public domain, a short narration listing the benefits of holding an expo online, without adequate detail, investment, creativity, labour or skill, and so failed the originality requirement of section 13(1)(a). The Court held that it did not even answer to the description of a concept note, since it disclosed no principle, idea or steps for conducting a virtual expo. Beyond the case, the Court held that a basic filtration must be carried out at the examination stage of a copyright application, guided by the Practice and Procedure Manual, which should itself be kept updated, and that copyright registration should not be orphaned from the kind of scrutiny trade mark registration receives.

Mohd Shakir v. Gopal Traders & Anr.

Delhi High Court · Rectification allowed

Rectification petition under section 50 of the Copyright Act dismissed. A petitioner who clears the person aggrieved threshold must still prove that the entry was wrongly made. The petitioner sought to do so by relying on a Lebanese third party's trade mark registrations in Australia and elsewhere to show that the respondent's artistic work was not original, but that third party was never made a party. Foreign trade mark registrations are not incontrovertible evidence of authorship of an artistic work, and rectifying the register on them would rest on extraneous and unverified evidence. The Berne Convention does not assist, since it is for the alleged author to assert its own rights. Section 48 makes the register only prima facie evidence, leaving any true author free to claim. The petitioner was also approbating and reprobating, having itself claimed in its own opposition to be the originator of the same artistic work.

Manju Singal Proprietor Singla Food Products v. Deepak Kumar & Anr.

Delhi High Court · Rectification allowed

Rectification allowed under section 50 of the Copyright Act and the Registrar directed to expunge the respondent's registration for the artistic work. Where there is substantial similarity between two works, the later work cannot be said to be original. The respondent's work was a slavish imitation of the petitioner's GULCHHARE artwork used since 2009, and the distinguishing elements did not affect the substantial similarity or the imitation. The Court applied the tests used to compare label marks in a passing off action to the comparison of labels that are artistic works, and noted the principle that where dishonesty is apparent, greater attention is paid to the points of similarity and less to the points of difference.

Other provisions of the Copyright Act

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