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11.3Govindan vs Gopalakrishna, was a case of compilation. It was held that though in the case of "compilation" the amount of originality will be very small but even that small amount is protected by law and no man is entitled to steal or appropriate for himself the result of another's brain, skill or labour even in such works. On the defense plea of common source it was held : " A person relying on it must show that he went to the common source from which he borrowed, employing his skill, labour and brains and that he did not merely do the work of the copyist, by copying away from another work."

11.4Sham Lal Paharia vs Gaya Prasad Air 1971 Allahabad 182, it was held : "A compilation derived from a common source falls within ambit of literary work." "A work of compilation of a nature similar to that of another will not by itself constitute an infringement of the copyright of another person's work written on the same pattern. The question whether an impugned work is colourable imitation of another person's work is always a question of fact. The determining factor is to see whether the impugned work is a slavish imitation and a copy of another person's work or it bears the impress of the author's own labours and exertions." " It is true that from the mere fact that the defendant had the plaintiff's book with him will not by itself lead to an irresistible inference that he had copied the calculations from plaintiff's work. But from the fact that the mistakes committed by the plaintiff in certain calculations in his book are found in the defendant's book in similar calculations it must be held that the defendant had copied the calculations from plaintiff's book and must be deemed to have infringed the copyright of the plaintiff with regard to such calculations."

THE learned Judge has during the course of his judgment laid down a few principles based on a review of the case law which are reproduced hereunder so far as relevant for the decision of the case at hand : " Some of the rules of law that emerge from the principles enunciated in the aforesaid cases may be briefly summarised.

(1)Acompilation which may be derived from a common source falls within the ambit of literary work. (2)A work of compilation of a nature similar to that of another will not by itself constitute an infringement of the copyright of another person's work written on the same pattern. (3)The question whether an impugned work is a colourable imitation of another persons' work is always a question of fact and has to be determined from the circumstances in each case. (4)The determining factor in finding whether another person's copyright has been infringed is to see whether the impugned work is a slavish imitation and copy of another person's work or it bears the impress of the author's own labours and exertions. The aforesaid principles are by no means exhaustive.

(12) From the above statement of the authorities and the trend of judicial opinion it is clear that a compilation of addresses developed by any one by devoting time, money labour and skill though the sources may be commonly situated amounts to a `literary work' wherein the author has a copyright.

(13) On the institution of the suit the court directed appointment of a court commissioner well versed in operating computers. The Commissioner visited the premises of the defendant, operated the computer available there by utilising the defendant's floppies. Floppies were seized and have been brought to the court. On comparison of the data made available by the plaintiff with the data available on the floppies seized from the custody of the defendant it is found that a substantial number of entries are comparable word by word, line by line and even space by space. In some of the entries the locations of commas and full stop ( punctuation marks) are comparable. In a good number of entries spelling mistakes occurring in the plaintiff's data are to be found in the data compilation of the defendant as well. These provide an intrinsic irrebuttable circumstantial evidence of defendant having indulged into slavish imitation of plaintiff's compilation, making out a clear case of infringement of copyright. The database available with the defendant is substantially a copy of the database available with the plaintiff and compiled by him. The striking similarities noticed in the two databases could not have existed but for the fact of the defendant having made use of plaintiff's database. A strong prima facie case of infringement by the defendant of the plaintiff's copyright has been made out to the satisfaction of the court.