LUNARMECH MACHINENFABRIC LTD Vs. USF FILTRATION LTD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) I have heard Mr. S.K. Mehra, Advocate, learned counsel for the petitioners (hereinafter referred to as defendants) and Mr. Valmiki Mehta, Sr. Advocate, learned counsel for the respondents (hereinafter referred to as plaintiffs), and have gone through the impugned orders and copies of all the documents of the trial court placed on the files.

(2.) Perusal of the files shows that the suit is more than 11 years old. It was filed in the High Court on the Original side. Later it was transferred to the District Courts on enhancement of jurisdiction of District Courts. I will, therefore, examine its history commencing from the trial, in the High Court.

(3.) Briefly the facts are that in March, 1995 the plaintiffs (respondents herein) had filed a suit for perpetual injunction for restraining the defendants (petitioners herein) from manufacturing, selling, advertising directly or indirectly CPF machines which are allegedly based on the engineering drawings of the plaintiffs; to prevent infringement of copy right of the plaintiffs; for rendition of accounts or profits illegally earned; for deliver of all infringed materials and damages on the ground that plaintiffs manufacture continuous polymer filter systems under the trade mark "CPF" . It is explained that CPF is a machine which is used for removing particulate contaminants from plastic material. The plaintiffs allege in the plaint that they have a large number of customers in India in Textiles and Film Industry. The plaintiff No.1 had taken over the said business from Brunswick and continued its marketing activities in India through DEECO. Plaintiff No.2 is an American subsidiary of Plaintiff No.1 and manufactures a series of CPF machines referred to as "100 series" in the trade parlance of the plaintiffs. There are five models of the said series. It is pleaded that the plaintiffs' drawings are the closely guarded secret of the plaintiffs. The drawings are alleged to be original artistic work of plaintiff No.2. It is pleaded that by virtue of provisions of International Copy Right Order 1959 (as amended up to 1991), the Copy Rights Order extends to India and thus the plaintiff No.2 is the owner of the copy right in the said drawings by virtue of the provisions of Indian Copy Right Act, 1957 on the basis of the Universal Copy Right Convention Countries. It is averred that defendant No.1 had approached Brunswick in the year 1978 for distributorship rights of its CPF machines in India, which as mentioned above, have been taken over by plaintiff No.1. in 1988, which shows that the defendant No.1 had shown interest in the now plaintiffs technology as far back as in 1978.