Delhi High Court Autodesk, Inc. & Another vs Mr. Prashant Deshmukh & Others on 9 March, 2011 THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI % Judgment Pronounced on: 09.03.2011 + CS(OS) No. 1755/2003 Autodesk, Inc. & Another .....Plaintiffs versus Mr. Prashant Deshmukh & Others .....Defendants Advocates who appeared in this case: For the Plaintiff: Mr. Pravin Anand and Ms. Jaya Negi For the Defendant: None. HON'BLE MR JUSTICE V.K. JAIN 1. Whether Reporters of local papers may Yes be allowed to see the judgment? 2. To be referred to the Reporter or not? Yes 3. Whether the judgment should be reported Yes in Digest? V.K. JAIN, J. (ORAL) 1. This is a suit for permanent injunction, damages and delivery up of the infringing material. 2. Both the plaintiffs are companies registered in U.S.A. Plaintiff No.1 is a leading design software and digital content company having presence in more than 160 countries and providing design software to professionals, to help them in making, managing and marketing their CS(OS)No.1755/2003 Page 1 of 19 designs for hotels, motorways, office buildings and lifts etc. and its products are stated to be installed on millions of computers all over the world, including India. Plaintiff No.2 owns softwares such as Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office and also manufactures a large range of computer peripherals. Plaintiff No.1 has a large number of authorized resellers in India whereas plaintiff no.2 has a subsidiary company in India having office in New Delhi. It is claimed that the software developed and marketed by the plaintiffs are computer programmes within the meaning of Section 2(ffc) of the Copyright Act, 1957 and also covered under the definition of a literary work as per Section 2(o) of the Copyright Act. It is further claimed that the rights of authors of member countries of the Berne and Universal Copyright Conventions are protected under Indian Copyright laws since both India as well as U.S.A. are signatory to both these conventions. Plaintiff No.1 also claims to be owner of various trademarks in India, including AUTODESK and AutoCAD. AUTODESK is stated to have been registered in India in Class 9 vide registration No.462772. Plaintiff No.2 claims ownership of the trademarks MICORSOFT and WINDOWS. Plaintiff No.2 is CS(OS)No.1755/2003 Page 2 of 19 the registered proprietor of trademarks in India in Clause 9 and 16 vide registration No.430449B and 430450B. 3. It is alleged that in May, 2003, the plaintiff received information from Mr. Devesh Tiwari, a Service Engineer for the computers of the defendants, about large scale use of unlicensed/pirated software by the defendants. The plaintiffs have accordingly sought an injunction restraining the defendants from infringing their copyright and their registered trademarks. The plaintiff have also claimed damages amounting to Rs.20 lakhs besides rendition of accounts and delivery up of the unlicensed/pirated softwares contained in hard disks, compact disks, floppies etc. 4. The right of the defendant to file the written statement was closed by this Court vide Order dated 25 th February, 2005 and the plaintiffs were directed to produce evidence by way of affidavit. 5. The plaintiffs have filed four affidavits by of affidavits. In her affidavit by way of evidence, Ms. Rohini Boaz, who is working with Autodesk India Pvt. Ltd., a subsidiary of plaintiff No.1, has stated that the Autodesk India Pvt. Ltd. has access to the license database of plaintiff CS(OS)No.1755/2003 Page 3 of 19 No.1 which lists out all licensed software users in India in order to keep track of authorized licensees at any given point of time. The data base contains the information of authorized licensees, particulars of software licenses they own in India and serial numbers of those software programmes. She has further stated that license check dated 19th October, 2004 revealed that defendants 1 and 2 were not holding any license from plaintiff No.1 whereas defendant No.3 M/s Space Designers Syndicate was holding a license in respect of AutoCAD LT 2005, which was at serial No.34208419184 registered on 19th September, 2004. 6. In his affidavit by way of evidence, Mr. Devesh J. Tiwari has stated that he was working with M and S Consultancy Services since January, 2003 as a computer service engineer