Copyright registration in the ZOOOK artwork revoked under section 50 and the accompanying Search Certificate set aside, on two procedural grounds. The TM-C Search Certificate had been issued contrary to the Trade Marks Register, and the applicant had failed to notify the petitioner under Rule 70(9) of the Copyright Rules 2013 although the petitioner plainly had an interest in the subject matter, which subsumed its registered mark ZOOOK. That requirement was the more pronounced because the applicant knew the petitioner was disputing its claim to the mark, with one opposition already successful and two pending. Non-compliance undermined the integrity of the process and deprived the petitioner of its right to contest the registration.
Copyright registrations in bicycle part packaging expunged under section 50 for want of originality. The Court compared the packaging in detail: the circular trade name logo placed centrally in the same white on blue and white on red schemes, the product name 'BALL HEAD RACERS' below the logo in matching lettering, and the identical placement of 'BALL HEAD RACER' and '10 SET OF THREE' on the side panels. A 2016 decree had already restrained the same respondent from using packaging that was a slavish imitation of the petitioner's.
Copyright registration in an artistic work expunged under section 50. The Court found the work was not original but a copy, and placed weight on a contradiction in the respondent's own filings: he declared the work "unpublished" to the Copyright Registry in 2017 while claiming use since 2015 in a trade mark application, a declaration false to his knowledge that manifestly disclosed mala fides and showed the adoption was not bona fide. The Court also observed that the situation might not have arisen had the Trade Marks Registry been careful in complying with the mandate of the Act. A request to declare the respondent a trade mark squatter was refused for want of any pleading or document to support it.
Four appeals allowed and a common order of the Registrar of Copyrights quashed and remitted for de novo consideration. Two defects were identified. The respondents admitted they were not "persons interested", and the Registrar had not dealt with whether their role could begin at the section 45 and Rule 70 stage or only after section 50. Separately, the respondents produced electronic evidence at the hearing to show that more than a hundred installations had been made, so as to attract the bar in section 15(2), and the Registrar accepted it without furnishing it to the appellant or affording any opportunity to rebut.
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.
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.
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.
Cancellation allowed. Copyright in the Delhi Public School label and logo standing registered in the respondent's name was cancelled as patently wrong, the petitioner being the original author of the artwork. The respondent company had been struck off the records of the Registrar of Companies, and the director named as author in the registration certificate had earlier been restrained by decree from using the DPS mark, the words Delhi Public School, and the logo and crest, or reproducing their get up, layout, design, colour scheme and arrangement of features.
