Case Summary
Submitted by: Sai Gayatri, Intern at CIPRA
Brief
The plaintiff i.e., Vikas Jain filed a suit seeking a permanent injunction regarding the use of their registered Design under No. 194631 dated 23rd February 2004.
The aforementioned Design of the plaintiff was associated with a toy scooter known as ‘Boom Scooty’. The plaintiff was aggrieved by the fact that the Defendants i.e., Aftab Ahmad and Others were manufacturing a similar toy scooter that represented the same registered design as that of the plaintiff’s product. The toy scooter being manufactured by the defendants was deceptively similar/identical to the one being manufactured by the plaintiff. As a result, the plaintiff herein had filed a suit in the Hon’ble High Court of Delhi (hereinafter ‘High Court’) seeking a permanent injunction to restrain the defendants and other such third parties from infringing or copying the plaintiff’s registered design.
After reviewing the submissions made by the plaintiff, the High Court vide an Order dated 11th August 2005, granted an exparte injunction against the defendants restraining them from manufacturing the impugned product thereby favoring the plaintiff. In response, the defendants filed a Written Statement and on the ground of previous publication, they challenged the validity of the registered design in dispute. Subsequently, the grant of exparte injunction was upheld vide an Order dated 4th July 2007 and the defendants were restrained from copying the registered design of the plaintiff and manufacturing a similar toy scooter.
Further, on 8th April 2008, issues were framed in the suit and both parties led the relevant evidence. Also, for the purpose of a speedy trial, a Local Commissioner was appointed. Subsequently, after the evidence was presented, the suit was directed to be listed for final hearing through an Order dated 7th February 2013.
Law involved
For the purpose of the case at hand, the relevant provisions from the Designs Act, 2000 were extracted. To be precise, Section 11 of the Designs Act, 2000 states that a registered proprietor of a design shall have a copyright in the design for ten years from the date of registration. Such copyright can further be extended for five years only after the expiration of the originally allotted ten years time period.
From the aforementioned provision, it is understood that the registered design of the plaintiff could only last until 23rd February 2019 at most and thus, he cannot retain exclusive right over such design thereby denying others from using it.
Judgement of the Court
As per Section 11 of the Designs Act, 2000, the High Court held that the registered design of the plaintiff lapsed during the pendency of the suit, therefore the plaintiff cannot assert any right over it. Thus, the registered design has come into the public domain. Further, the court also held that the suit had become infructuous inter Alia. As a result, the injunction Order which was granted in 2005 was not allowed to be continued after 24th April 2022 when the final order was passed. The suit was disposed of in favor of the defendants.