SAP AKTIENGESELLSCHAFT Vs. PARGINSYS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS suit has been filed by the plaintiff, a German Company/firm having an Indian subsidiary company with registered office at Bangalore, in respect of infringement of copyright and for damages and delivery and rendition of accounts against the defendants who are stated to have their office in Nagpur, Maharashtra and committed infringement in Maharashtra.

(2.) IT is the case of the plaintiff that plaintiff learnt about the defendants' organization and came to know about the defendants offering to provide training services in the plaintiffs' software programme. The plaintiff made discreet inquiries and planted a decoy student to get the training who obtained a receipt of payment of fees at defendants' office in Nagpur and found out that the training was being imparted on a pirated software and the defendant was infringing copyright of plaintiff at Nagpur. The Plaintiff's agent got an FIR registered, being No. 303 on 19th November 2008 registered against the defendants under the provisions of Copyright Act and under Section 420 of Indian Penal Code at Nagpur.

(3.) I have perused all documents filed by the plaintiff but could not find a single document showing existence of a branch office in New Delhi. No lease deed showing that the plaintiff has taken on rent an office in New Delhi has been filed. There is no doubt that the plaintiff has a right to file a suit for infringement of its copyright at the place where it works for gain but the perusal of entire plaint and the documents annexed therewith would show that the plaintiff works for gain either in Germany or in Bangalore. The plaintiff No. 1 while has given its address of Germany, plaintiff No. 2 has given its address of Bangalore and below this address it is written also at a Delhi address. The expression 'carrying on its business' or personally works for gain, does not mean having business interest at a particular place. Plaintiff through its partners may be imparting training to students in Delhi. The documents filed show that the students were being imparting training of its software throughout India at different locations in different cities by different companies with whom plaintiff entered into a kind of agreement. The plaintiff is the supplier of the software and the training is being imparted by the partners. The plaintiff has placed on record a sample of Partners Cooperation Agreement being entered into. A perusal of this agreement would show that the training location and training apparatus and all paraphernalia was to be provided by the partners and the software was to be supplied by the plaintiff. Thus, it is in fact an arrangement of user of the plaintiff's software under a license. If somebody is using the plaintiff's software under license of the plaintiff or the plaintiff is providing software support that would not mean that the plaintiff was having place of business where the training was being imparted to the students by the partners.