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g) Even otherwise, case of the Plaintiffs falls to the ground for the simple reason that Plaintiffs have misleadingly attempted to claim copyright in the 'concept of combining Fantasy League with Stock Market', predicated on copyright registration dated 11.02.2022. Plaintiffs allege copyright infringement of their 'concept note', registered as a literary/dramatic work, but there is no attempt in the plaint or any other document to demonstrate how the Defendants' App is a substantial reproduction of the registered literary work. The only comparison shown is between the screenshots of the User Interface of the Plaintiffs' App, which is not registered and the screenshots of the Defendants' App. It is a settled law that concepts and ideas cannot be protected under the Act 1957 and it is only the expression of the ideas that are granted protection. 

                                       i)     Whelan Associates, Inc. v.           Jaslow    Dental
                                              Laboratory, Inc., 797 F.2d 1222.
                                       ii)    Broderbund Software, Inc. v. Unison World, 648 F.
                                              Supp. 1127.

iii) Maraekat Infotech Ltd. v. Mr. Naylesh V. Kothari and Others, 2016 SCC OnLine Bom 2369.

g) Defendants have substantially copied the GUI, which is evident from the screenshots produced by the Plaintiffs and have deceitfully not produced screenshots of some pages selectively such as 'Portfolio Page', 'Buy Player Page', 'Sell Player Page', which on being viewed together makes it clear that Defendants have substantially copied the GUI of the Plaintiffs. 


                                                            Defendants' reliance on the
                                                            screenshot     from     Wayback
                                                            Machine to show that the app was
                                                            available in 2018 is wrong. As on
                                                            21.11.2019       the      website
                                                            www.sixergame.com showed that
                                                            the app is 'Coming Soon'.
                                                            Reference is placed on the
                                                            screenshot below.









                                       2.      Join MKT      In the said app, all the players   The Join MKT app
                                                            are initially valued at $1 and     was launched on
that provides access to a digital library of internet sites in digital form and the said service makes it possible to serve the records of saved URLs on the web archives of internet archives. In order to avoid burdening the judgment, this Court is not extracting the screenshots of the said documents, but as is prima facie evident from the afore-extracted screenshots in respect of app SIXER, gaming mobile apps containing the stock market feature, permitting buying and selling of players, existed prior to Plaintiffs' app. For the sake of completeness, I may only refer to a few features brought out by the Defendants, with respect to the other mobile apps and which the Defendants have shown to exist prior to that of the Plaintiffs. 'World Cup Cricket Stock Market APK' as admitted by the Plaintiffs was an application created for cricket world cup, 2015 albeit the stand is that the application cannot be accessed as on 04.05.2022, when the written note was filed. The distinguishing feature according to the Plaintiffs is the feature in EXCHANGE22, which allows the player to buy/sell stocks only for the duration of the match. Defendants claim that screenshots show listing of players with 'price' and users are allowed to buy and sell stocks of their favourite cricket players and see the value rise and fall based on real life performance during cricket world cup 2015. In respect of 'Prediction Strike' while Plaintiffs claim that it was launched in September, 2019 i.e. subsequent to Plaintiffs' launch and have attempted to highlight the feature that players are initially valued by the developer and thereafter prices are guided by market forces of demand and supply, Defendants urge that the WhoIs dated 19.05.2018 and Wayback Machine dated 11.10.2018 show the launch prior to that of Plaintiffs' app and the commonality in the feature is buy and own shares of favourite players as a real stock and value depends on their performance and supply and demand. Screenshots of the application show 'number of shares', 'total holdings', 'portfolio' and 'account'. In the same fashion, Defendants have pointed out the launch of applications Trade Stars, TradeFan, CricStocks etc. prior to EXCHANGE22 and have placed on record supporting documents. It is thus prima facie evident and needs to be reiterated that from the documents filed by the Defendants, particularly, the screenshots of the Wayback Machine and WhoIs data that some of the applications of the third parties, as referred to above, were launched prior to EXCHANGE22 and do incorporate the trading/stock features, whereby players could be bought and sold by the user. As a further illustration, I may refer to 'Prediction Strike', which has the feature of "Buy and own 'shares' of your favourite players just like you would a real stock", the value of players depends on their performance as well as supply and demand. Screenshot of the app showing 'number of shares', 'total holdings', 'portfolio' and 'account', as placed on record by the Defendants, is as under:-