Delhi High Court - Orders
Sap Se vs Vtech Soft Solutions & Ors on 16 March, 2020
Author: Mukta Gupta
Bench: Mukta Gupta
$~31
* IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI
+ CS(COMM) 110/2020
SAP SE ..... Plaintiff
Represented by: Mr. Ranjan Narula, Mr. Shashi Pratap
Ojha, Advs.
versus
VTECH SOFT SOLUTIONS & ORS. ..... Defendant
Represented by:
CORAM:
HON'BLE MS. JUSTICE MUKTA GUPTA
ORDER
% 16.03.2020 I.A. 3501/2020 (u/S 80(2) CPC)
1. By this application the plaintiff seeks exemption from issuing notice to defendant No.26 and 27 who are Union of India through the Department of Telecommunication and Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology respectively from giving an advance notice under Section 80 CPC.
2. Considering the nature of relief sought and the urgency, plaintiff is exempted from giving an advance notice under Section 80 CPC to defendant No.26 and 27.
3. Application is disposed of.
I.A. 3500/2020Exemption allowed subject to just exceptions.
I.A. 3499/2020 (u/O XI R 1(4) Commercial Courts Act)
1. Additional documents if any be filed within 30 days.
2. Application is disposed of.
CS(COMM) 110/2020 page 1 of 5 CS(COMM) 110/2020 & I.A. 3498/2020 (u/O XXXIX R 1&2 CPC)
1. Plaint be registered as suit.
2. Issue summons in the suit and notice in the application to defendant No.1 and defendants No.3 to 30 on the plaintiff taking steps through ordinary and dasti process, registered AD and speed post as also through the e-mail returnable before the learned Joint Registrar on 20 th April, 2020 for completion of service, pleadings and admission/ denial of documents.
3. Summons to the defendants shall indicate that the written statement to the plaint shall be positively filed within 30 days of the receipt of the summons. Liberty is given to the plaintiff to file the replication within three weeks of the receipt of the advance copy of the written statement.
4. Parties shall file all original documents in support of their respective claims along with their respective pleadings. In case parties are placing reliance on a document which is not in their power and possession, its detail and source shall be mentioned in the list of reliance which shall be also filed with the pleadings.
5. Admission/ denial of documents shall be filed on affidavit by the parties along with the pleadings. The affidavit shall include the list of the documents of the other party. The deponents shall indicate their position with regard to the documents against the particulars of each document.
6. List the suit and application before Court on 19th May, 2020.
7. Case of the plaintiff is that the plaintiff through its wholly owned Indian subsidiary SAP India Private Limited is involved in sales of SAP solutions, implementation, post-implementation support, training and certification of its customers and partners in India. The prime object of the CS(COMM) 110/2020 page 2 of 5 plaintiff has been to develop application software products for real time business processing efforts. Plaintiff provides various end-to-end software application solutions to its customers, one of which is SAP Business Suite, which optimizes all business-critical processes. The said programme has following five components;
a) SAP ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning);
b) SAP CRM (Customer Relationship Management);
c) SAP PLM (Product Lifecycle Management);
d) SAP SCM (Supply Chain Management);
e) SAP SRM (Supplier Relationship Management).
8. Plaintiff is also offering pirated SAP software with remote SAP Server Access through the website www.vtechsoft.in. and www.vtechsoft.co.in.
9. Thus, without any license from the plaintiff the defendant is not only violating the plaintiff‟s copyright in its products but is also providing pirated programmes through its interactive website. Apart from running interactive website, the defendant No.1 has also made profiles on the social media like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube, etc. to attract potential students. Thus, defendant is utilizing various tools for its business activities without any authorization/ license from the plaintiff by using pirated software/material.
10. Despite a cease and desist letter dated 2nd August, 2019 having been sent to the defendant No.1, the defendant No.1 neither gave any response nor desisted from using the pirated and unlicensed material. Though CS(COMM) 110/2020 page 3 of 5 defendant in the first week of September, deactivated its website for a short period, however in November again it activated and started its activity.
11. Considering that the defendant No.1 is engaging in activities without any license/ authorization from the plaintiff, plaintiff has made out a prima facie case in its favour based on the documents placed on record and in case no ad-interim injunction is granted, the plaintiff would suffer an irreparable loss. The balance of convenience also lies in favour of the plaintiff and against the defendant No.1.
12. Consequently, an ex-parte ad-interim injunction is passed in favour of the plaintiff and against the defendant No.1 in terms of prayer (a), (b) and
(c) of the application.
13. Since the domain name of the defendant No.1 is registered with the defendant No.3, the defendant No.3 is directed to deactivate/ disable the access to the websites and domain names www.vtechsoft.in and www.vtechsoft.co.in.
14. Defendant No.4 to 25 are also directed to block the services and disable the access provided to defendant No.1 as under:
S.No. Domain Name URL IP Address
1. www.vtechsoft.in http://www.vtechsoft.in 166.62.30.153
2. www.vtechsoft.co.in Htpp://www.vtechsoft.co.in 148.66.138.161
15. Considering the fact that the defendant No.1 is collecting money and facilitating transactions for selling the pirated SAP software/ certification and training material though its account "VTECH SOFT SOLUTIONS, A/C#111905000545, ICICI Bank (Current Account) IFSC Code:
CS(COMM) 110/2020 page 4 of 5 ICIC0001119", the Chief Manager of defendant No.28 at its Head Office is directed to freeze the A/C#111905000545 till the next date of hearing before this Court.
16. Defendant No.29 and 30 are also in the meantime directed to deactivate the social media accounts of defendant No.1 through which defendant No.1 is advertising and promoting its infringing activities and providing pirated SAP software/ certification and training material etc.
17. Compliance under Order XXXIX Rule 3 CPC be done within 10 days.
18. Order dasti.
MUKTA GUPTA, J.
MARCH 16, 2020 'ga' CS(COMM) 110/2020 page 5 of 5