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The Delhi High Court in the case of Microsoft Corporation & Ors. v. Satveer Gaur & Anr awarded Rs 30 lakh as damages to Microsoft Corporation, Adobe system in Internet, and software piracy. The same was delivered by Justice Hon'ble Mr. Justice V. Kameswar Rao.
The plaintiffs asserted that they suffered huge losses to their intellectual property rights and business due to various forms of copyright piracy in their software programs. They held that the defendants reproduced the plaintiffs’ software and the packaging of the same so that purchasers are deliberately misled to believe that the product they are buying is genuine software belonging to the plaintiff’s. They reproduced the plaintiffs’ software into a blank writable CD/DVD which does not showcase genuine and creating more copies than allowed by the End-User License Agreement.
The defendant submitted before the court that the software belonging to the plaintiff was not used by the defendant which requires a paid license. Also, the software of the plaintiff that was found on the defendant’s systems was freeware and downloaded for personal use and was never used in relation to the business activity. It was also emphasized that at the time of seizure the only software of the plaintiff on the defendant’s system was Quest TOAD, which is Open Source and does not require a paid license.
The High Court of Delhi referred Supreme Court judgment of Indian Performing Rites Society v. Sanjay Dalia (2015) 10 SCC 161, wherein the Supreme Court held that a suit can be filed at a place where the plaintiff has a principal place of office and not a subordinate office. The principal place of office of the plaintiff No.2 is in Delhi. Further, the Court stated that the registered Office of defendant No.2 is also in Delhi, and Issue no. 1 was decided accordingly.
Defendant failed to showcase for many issues and the same was decided in the favor of the plaintiffs. Further, the Delhi High Court also awarded compensation of Rs.30 lakhs in favor of the plaintiffs.
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