3 weeks Ago By Tushar Tere
Vadodara: The copyright suit filed by Inox India Private Ltd against two firms at the commercial court in Vadodara will go to trial on the directives of the Supreme Court. The SC on Tuesday also ordered the commercial court here to conduct the trial and decide the matter within one year. Inox, which manufactures cryogenic liquid storage and transportation tanks for industrial gases, had in 2018 filed a suit against Cryogas Equipment Pvt Ltd (CEPL) and LNG Express India Pvt Ltd (LEIPL) under The Copyright Act, 1957.
Inox said it had developed a cryogenic storage tank and distribution system by research and development and is the sole and exclusive copyright owner of the proprietary engineering drawings. In 2018, Inox learnt that CEPL and LEIPL were venturing into the manufacturing and selling of cryogenic semi-trailers. The company contended in its suit that the defendants had copied their drawings.
Inox sought relief and prayed for a permanent injunction restraining CEPL and LEIPL from using or reproducing drawings similar to Inox's proprietary engineering drawings. LEIPL sought rejection of the suit, arguing that the proprietary engineering drawings Inox claimed were its copyright fell within the definition of ‘design' under The Designs Act, 2000. They argued that Inox lost copyrights for the said drawings by failing to register them under The Designs Act.
LEIPL further asserted that copyright does not subsist in any design that is registered or capable of being registered under the Designs Act once it has been reproduced more than fifty times by an industrial process, either by the copyright owner or any authorised licensee. The commercial court in Vadodara allowed the application filed by LEIPL and rejected Inox's complaint and its application for an interim injunction in 2022. Inox then filed two appeals in the Gujarat high court challenging the orders of the commercial court.
The HC in 2024 set aside the commercial court's order and remanded the matter back for fresh consideration. The commercial court reconsidered the applications and dismissed Inox's application for an ad interim injunction, after which the complainant again approached the HC, challenging the commercial court's orders. The HC set aside the commercial court's orders and directed it to decide on the injunction application, preferably within eight weeks.
The defendants then appealed against the HC's order in the SC. "The SC has directed the commercial court to consider the issue afresh and deliver its decision on the pending application seeking interim injunction preferred by Inox within two months," said advocate Jaideep Verma, who represented Inox in the commercial court. The SC also directed the commercial court to conduct a trial and discern the true nature of proprietary engineering drawings and other IP right infringements claimed by Inox within a period of one year.
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