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(e) Defendants No. 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 and 14 to 19 are ex-

employees of Plaintiffs No. 1 to 4. In the course of their employment, they discreetly incorporated Defendants No. 1 to 3, while they had complete access to Plaintiffs' proprietary software 'HealthBuzz', its source code and all other confidential data and trade secrets of the Plaintiffs. The infringing activities include misrepresentation to Plaintiffs' clients and business community that Defendants No. 1 to 3 were associates of Plaintiffs and authorized to provide services. Actual servicing/maintenance of the softwares installed by the Plaintiffs for their clients can only be possible if there is access to the source code of Plaintiffs' software 'HealthBuzz' and therefore, it is evident that even while servicing the softwares of the clients of the Plaintiffs, Defendants are using the copyrighted source code. Provision of other services, such as addition of modules or This is a digitally signed order.

(h) Based on the report, FIRs were lodged against the Defendant employees under Sections 120-B, 408 and 420 IPC pursuant to which Defendants No. 8 and 10 were arrested and for seeking release on bail they settled the matter by paying some money to the Plaintiffs. Despite the Ad-Hoc Agreement of settlement, they are continuing to breach the terms of the settlement as also infringing the copyrighted source code with impunity. Plaintiffs engaged 'KPMG' for conducting a This is a digitally signed order.

The authenticity of the order can be re-verified from Delhi High Court Order Portal by scanning the QR code shown above. The Order is downloaded from the DHC Server on 16/09/2023 at 16:14:46 litigation of infringement of copyright etc. and on this ground, the suit and the present application deserve to be dismissed.

16. Coming to the copyrighted 'source code' of the computer programme 'HealthBuzz, which is the sheet anchor of Plaintiffs' case, as understood from the available literature, a computer 'source code' is defined as a series of statements written in some human readable computer programming language constituting several text files and is a piece of computer software. In order to make a computer perform its functions, it has to be appropriately instructed. The machine language that is fed into the computer, in the form of instructions is called the computer language. The instructions or the programming given to a computer in a language known is called 'source code' in computer parlance and every computer functions with a separate source code. Source code is always protected and guarded by the computer companies and it has been held in several judgments that if a source code is copied, it would certainly violate the copyright of the developer. Section 14(b) of the 1957 Act provides as follows:-

The authenticity of the order can be re-verified from Delhi High Court Order Portal by scanning the QR code shown above. The Order is downloaded from the DHC Server on 16/09/2023 at 16:14:46 intellectual property rights in the service work in favour of the clients while others point out to the non-exclusive rights of the Plaintiffs in the service software/modules.

22. From the copious literature on the servicing and maintenance of softwares, available in public domain, to this Court it appears that servicing/maintenance contracts of a software are of different kinds, such as corrective maintenance, adaptive maintenance, perfective maintenance and preventive maintenance. While some services/ maintenance mechanisms may require access to the source code of the Plaintiffs as also modification thereof while others may relate strictly to the service work code/modules requiring no intervention in the source code. Certainly, if while servicing the softwares, Defendants are accessing the copyrighted source code of the Plaintiffs, it is an infringement. However, the question that again begs an answer is whether this Court is today adequately equipped to come to a finding that while servicing the softwares of third parties or the clients of the Plaintiffs, Defendants are accessing the copyrighted source code of 'HealthBuzz' and the answer is in the negative. In the absence of an expert opinion on the subject, Court does not have the necessary material or the expertise to ascertain if the Defendants are accessing Plaintiffs' source code while servicing the softwares of third parties and/or Plaintiffs' clients. Additionally, several related and significant questions also arise viz. (a) whether Defendants have access to the source code of the Plaintiffs; (b) whether it is impossible to service the third party softwares without access, use and modification of Plaintiffs' copyrighted source code; and (c) scope of work of servicing assignments and the modules/codes used, which may also require reference for an expert opinion.