Delhi High Court: In a case wherein the plaintiff, Tibra Collection filed a suit for copyright infringement, passing off and delivery up against the defendants, who were advertising, publishing and offering for sale the garments, which were a complete copy of the plaintiff’s garments and were also misusing the photographs and images in which the plaintiff owns rights, Prathiba M. Singh, J., after considering the complete imitation, which had been indulged by Defendants 2 to 6 and unknown defendants, opined that the plaintiff had made out a case for grant of an ex-parte interim injunction. The Court restrained Defendants 2 to 6, who were listing their products on Meesho.com platform, from reproducing, copying, publishing, and imitating any of the designs of the plaintiff’s clothes or even reproducing the images including the photographs of the plaintiff.
Background
The plaintiff was a retailer in clothing items for men and women and specialized in ethnic wear, which were designed by its own in-house designers. It offered for sale and advertised its goods on various e-commerce platforms such as Amazon, Flipkart and Meesho. Defendant 1, Fashnear Technologies (P) Ltd, was the company that ran the e-commerce platform, www.meesho.com. Defendants 2 to 6 were unlawful and unauthorisedplaintiff’s copyrighted pictures, photographs and sold their counterfeit goods thereunder on the online platform owned, run, managed, and administered by Defendant 1. Defendant 7 was unknown identity, that could have been one or various parties who used plaintiff’s images to sell products.
It was contended that the defendants were going to the extent of imitating the products and copying the identical photographs but underpricing the goods to cause monetary damage to the plaintiff. The Defendant 1’s counsel submitted that as an intermediary, the obligation of Meesho was to ensure that whenever any URLs were communicated to Meesho of look-alike images and products, the same be taken down upon the order being passed by the Court.
Comparison of plaintiff’s and defendants’ products:
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Plaintiff’s Listing |
Defendants’ Listing |
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Analysis, Law, and Decision
The Court opined that Defendants 2 to 6 and unknown Defendant 7 were completely misusing the plaintiff’s product images, listing images, product design in order to monetarily ride on the reputation of the plaintiff and in some cases, the complete images were also not visible in the defendants’ listings, which was nothing but an attempt to conceal the copying. The Court further opined that the sellers did not have any right to copy the photographs, images, product design of the plaintiff in this manner and cause damage.
The Court further opined that “While E-Commerce provided new platforms for small designers and businesses, the same ought not to be misused for the purposes of imitating and producing look alike products thereby violating the intellectual property rights of the plaintiff. There was also an obligation upon the E-Commerce platform to ensure that the complete details of the sellers were available on the platform so that the consumer was aware of the sellers from whom the product have been purchased and the entity, who was listing the product”. The Court held that there had to be consistency in the seller’s name.
The Court noted that the plaintiff’s counsel relied upon the Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules, 2020, notified on 23-07-2020, which imposed an obligation as per Section 5, on the e-commerce platform to give the full geographic address, customer care number, rating, and other feedback about the seller for enabling consumers to make informed decision at the pre-purchase stage.
The Court after considering the complete imitation, which had been indulged by Defendants 2 to 6 and unknown defendants, opined that the plaintiff had made out a case for grant of an ex-parte interim injunction. The Court further held that “it was also in the consumers interest that such look-alike products were not permitted to be sold”. The Court observed that irreparable harm would be caused if the injunction was not granted, as on such platforms, it was extremely easy for sellers to proliferate the images and continue to dupe customers. Thus, the Court issued the following directions:
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Defendants 2 to 6 who were listing their products on Meesho.com platform, were restrained from reproducing, copying, publishing, and imitating any of the designs of the plaintiff’s clothes or even reproducing the images including the photographs of the plaintiff.
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Defendants 2 to 6 were also restrained from copying the plaintiff’s designs, and any other designs/images of the plaintiff, in respect of its clothing.
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Meesho shall reveal all the available details of the sellers including the address, mobile numbers, email addresses, total sales made by the sellers, GST details, payments made to the sellers since the time listings have been put up.
The matter would next be listed on 21-03-2024.
[Tibra Collection v. Fashnear Technologies (P) Ltd., 2023 SCC OnLine Del 6237, Order dated 27-09-2023]
Advocates who appeared in this case :
For the Petitioner: Mr. Anshuman Upadhyay, Mr. Naseem, Ms. Apoorva, Advocates
For the Respondents: Mr. Sidharth Chopra, Ms. Sneha Jain, Mr. Vivek Ayyagari, Ms R Ramya, Advocates
