Delhi District Court
Bentley Systems And Anr vs Nakshatech Pvt. Ltd on 7 June, 2024
IN THE COURT OF MS. NEELAM SINGH
DISTRICT JUDGE (COMMERCIAL)-02, SOUTH EAST
SAKET COURTS, NEW DELHI
CS (COMM)-171/2023
In the matter of
Bentley Systems Incorporated
685, Stockton Drive
Exton, PA 19341
United State of America .........Plaintiff No.1
Bentley Systems India Pvt Ltd.
Work Well Suites Max House,
Near NSIC, Okhla Metro Station,
Level 10,
1 Dr. Jha Marg, Okhla Phase-III
New Delhi-110020 .........Plaintiff No.2
Versus
Nakshatech Pvt Ltd.
(Through its Director) .....Defendant No.1
Surapura Chandrsheker Renuka
(Director of Defendant No.1) .....Defendant No.2
Koneralu Ganeshappa Chethan Kumar
(Director of Defendant No.1) .....Defendant No.3
Shekar Chokanally Vinod Kumar
(Director of Defendant No.1) .....Defendant No.4
All at:
4th & 5th Floor,
73/1a, R.K Chambers,
5th Main, Chamarajpet,
Near Indian Oil Petrol Pump
Bangalore-560018.
Date of Institution of suit : 20.02.2023
Date of Reserving of judgment : 07.06.2024
Date of Judgment : 07.06.2024
Final Decision : Decreed
CS (COMM)-171/2023 Bentley Systems & Anr. Vs. Nakshatech Pvt Ltd. & Ors. Page 1 of 6
JUDGMENT
1. The brief facts of the case is that plaintiff is a globally renowned company in the field of software development and has a great reputation all over the world. Plaintiff holds and own license for each item of its software installed on the desktop of the customers and is proprietor of all copy rights for its software brands including STAAD, Mircostation, OpenFlow, Open ground, Open plat, Open rail, Open roads, Open site, Open tower, Open utilities, Open Windpower, Orbit, Plantsight, Plantwise, PLAXIS, Pointools, Procureware, Projectwise, Prostructures, RAM, SACS, Signcad, SOILVISION, Streetlytics, Super Load, SYNCHRO, Watergems and Sewergems etc.
2. Plaintiff has a mandatory license for all its products and the details of the organizations to which software's are lincensed is maintained by the plaintiff's, which details are updated from time to time and the licenses given by the plaintiff are non-assignable and non-transferable except with the prior consent. It is averred that the product software 'microstation' of plaintiff is developed only after expansive studies, research and knowledge carried by the plaintiff's and involves lot of market research and work inputs from various people in order to understand the specific requirement of the customer and to produce quality products in order to leave no lacunae in the operations.
3. Plaintiff states that its software Microstation has become a well-known brand and the plaintiffs are the exclusive and rightful owner of the intellectual property therein, the product is the valuable property of the plaintiff being its exclusive owner of all confidential CS (COMM)-171/2023 Bentley Systems & Anr. Vs. Nakshatech Pvt Ltd. & Ors. Page 2 of 6 or proprietary and technical, commercial, financial, marketing and or technical or business information, trade secrets which are used and accessed by the customers of the plaintiff during the course of his / her engagement with the plaintiffs without any limitation qua concepts, techniques, practices etc. and is branded as Bentley MicroStation Software and is an intuitive design modeling tool that satisfy project teams' 3D modeling requirements with a single software product and helps to intuitively and interactively build and edit models faster.
4. Plaintiff then states that the defendant are learnt to have engaged in gross infringement of the Copyrights of the plaintiff company, qua the above said software, which is being carried out deliberately and with mala fide intentions due to which plaintiffs are compelled to cause the present application seeking ad-interim injunction to restrain the defendants, there officers, directors etc from engaging in any further infringement of the copy right of the plaintiff as it is learnt at the end that defendants indulged into illegal acts of infringing the copy right of the plaintiff and are involved in providing services to its clients using unlicensed software programme which tantamount to piracy of Bentley Microstation software of plaintiff's, since it is learnt that defendant is provider of tailored and geospatial services, enterprise software solution, mobility solution, digital marketing, E-commerce solutions, Front end JS frameworks, web accessibility, data migration solutions, quality assurance and testing.
5. Plaintiffs averred that by engaging in unauthorised, unlicensed versions of Microstation Software, the defendant has caused violation of provisions of Section 51 of Indian Copyright Act, 1957, CS (COMM)-171/2023 Bentley Systems & Anr. Vs. Nakshatech Pvt Ltd. & Ors. Page 3 of 6 since it is monitored that the defendants are continuing to use the infringed versions of microstation softwares on multiple computer systems.
6. Plaintiffs have sent a legal notices to the defendants on 23.06.2021 and 09.07.2021 in an exercise to seek the test from the operation, however, despite the same the defendants are continuing to infringe the versions of the Microstation softwares and have flatly denied the information contrary to the information collected through multiple checks by the plaintiff.
7. The Defendants are stated to be in the possession of infringed material and are continuously indulging in the aforesaid acts of infringement by unauthorised usage of the software of Plaintiff which tantamount to violation of the copyright through their officials, who manage the affairs of the Defendants. Plaintiffs state that defendants are aware of the violation being caused to their computer system and despite a notices sent on 23.06.2021 and 09.07.2021 calling upon the Defendants to remove all the unlicensed software programs and its related contents with an immediate effect and to pay the licensing fee for the unauthorized usage of the said software, to cease the use of infringing Bentley MicroStation software, to destroy all unused copies of infringing software, to give an unconditional undertaking, the Defendants failed to comply with the same which has caused huge loss of goodwill and reputation as well as financial losses.
8. The present suit has been filed by the plaintiff on 20.02.2023 before the present Court and on the same date, this court has passed ad-interim ex-parte injunction in favour of the plaintiff and against the defendants and also appointed Local Commissioner to visit the CS (COMM)-171/2023 Bentley Systems & Anr. Vs. Nakshatech Pvt Ltd. & Ors. Page 4 of 6 premises of the defendant. In the meanwhile, defendants were also summoned and they were duly served on 28.02.2023. On the next date of hearing i.e. 31.03.2023, defendants had put their appearance through their counsel and filed their WS alongwith an application for condonation of delay. However, vide order dated 03.10.2023, the WS filed on behalf of defendants was taken off the record and defence of defendants was also struck off.
9. Thereafter, matter was listed for plaintiff's evidence. Plaintiff has led his evidence by way of affidavit Ex.PW1/1 and examined Sh. Tarun Mutreja as PW-1 who has who has placed on record copy of power of attorney issued by plaintiff no.1 (Mark A), copy of power of attorney issued by plaintiff no.1 in favour of plaintiff no.2 (Mark B), copy of certificate regarding the IPR's held by plaintiff no.1 (Mark C), copy of notice dated 23.06.2021 issued by plaintiffs alongwith dispatch proof and copy of reminder notice dated 09.07.2021 via email (Mark D and Mark E), copy of infringing database (Mark F).
10. It is the case of the plaintiff that defendants are stated to be in the possession of infringed material and are continuously indulging in the aforesaid acts of infringement by unauthorised usage of the software of plaintiff which tantamount to violation of the copyright through their officials, who manage the affairs of the defendants. Plaintiffs state that defendants are aware of the violation being caused to their computer system and despite notices being sent on 23.06.2021 and 09.07.2021 calling upon the defendants to remove all the unlicensed software programs and its related contents with an immediate effect and to pay the licensing fee for the unauthorized usage of the said software, to cease the use of infringing Bentley CS (COMM)-171/2023 Bentley Systems & Anr. Vs. Nakshatech Pvt Ltd. & Ors. Page 5 of 6 MicroStation software, to destroy all unused copies of infringing software, to give an unconditional undertaking, the defendants failed to comply with the same which has caused huge loss of goodwill and reputation as well as financial losses.
11. Thus, as a net result of the aforesaid, defendants, their Principle officers, Directors, Agents/Agencies and all other acting for and on their behalf, from directly or indirectly reproducing/creating/storing/installing and/or using pirated/unlicensed/unauthorised software's of the plaintiffs are hereby restrained from infringing Copyright in the plaintiffs computer programs/software titles. A decree of payment of damages of Rs. 10,00,000/- is also passed in favour of plaintiff alongwith interest pendente-lite and future interest @ 6% p.a. till its realization.
12. The Suit of the Plaintiff is decreed accordingly. Decree sheet be drawn and file be consigned to Record Room.
Announced & dictated in the open Court on this 07th June, 2024 (NEELAM SINGH) District Judge (Commercial Court-02) South-East, Saket Courts, ND 07.06.2024 CS (COMM)-171/2023 Bentley Systems & Anr. Vs. Nakshatech Pvt Ltd. & Ors. Page 6 of 6 CS (COMM)-171/2023 Bentley Systems & Anr. Vs. Nakshatech Pvt Ltd. & Ors.
07.06.2024 Present: Ms. Supriya Jain, Ld. Counsel for plaintiff.
None for defendant.
Vide separate judgment announced in the open court, the suit of the plaintiff is decreed.
An application under order XXXIX Rule 2 (A) CPC filed on behalf of plaintiff is pending adjudication. Ahlmad is directed to register a separate suit with regard to the said application.
File be consigned to record room after due compliance.
(NEELAM SINGH) District Judge (Commercial Court-02) South-East, Saket Courts, ND 07.06.2024 CS (COMM)-171/2023 Bentley Systems & Anr. Vs. Nakshatech Pvt Ltd. & Ors. Page 7 of 6