Sellers Do Not Have Right To Copy Photographs Or Product Design Of Small Businesses: Delhi HC Grants Injunction Against Meesho For Copyright Infringement

The Delhi High Court granted an injunction against the E-commerce platform Meesho and held that the Defendant does not have the right to copy the photographs, images, and product design of the sellers and cause damage to their business.

The Court listed the matter for November 17 and noted that e-commerce platforms are obligated to ensure that the complete details of the sellers are available on the platform so that the customer is aware of the sellers from whom the products have been purchased and the entity that is listing the product.

Justice Prathiba M Singh observed, “The sellers do not have any right to copy the photographs, images, product design of the Plaintiff in this manner and cause damage to the Plaintiff. While E-Commerce provide new platforms for small designers and businesses, the same ought not to be misused for the purposes of imitating and producing look alike products thereby violating the intellectual property rights of the Plaintif… There is also an obligation upon the E-Commerce platform to ensure that the complete details of the sellers are available on the platform so that the consumer is aware of the sellers from whom the product has been purchased and the entity, who is listing the product”.

Advocate Anshuman Upadhyay appeared for the Plaintiff and Advocate Sidharth Chopra appeared for the Defendants.

Per the Plaintiff’s case, he was a retailer of clothing items for men and women with a specialization in ethnic wear and advertised his goods on E-commerce platforms. The Plaintiff contended that the Defendant runs an e-commerce platform and used Plaintiff’s copyrighted pictures to sell their counterfeit goods. The Plaintiff approached the Court for copyright infringement, passing off, delivery up, and other reliefs including damages through its sole proprietor against the Defendants who are advertising, publishing, and offering for sale the garments, which are a complete copy of the Plaintiff’s garments and are also misusing the photographs and images of the Plaintiff.

The Court held that the sellers do not have any right to copy the photographs, images, and product design of the Plaintiff in the manner. The Court observed that while e-commerce offers new platforms for small designers and businesses, the same ought not to be misused for the purposes of imitating and producing look-alike products. Therefore, the Court held that the defendants were violating the intellectual property rights of the Plaintiff.

Therefore, the Court held that irreparable harm would be caused to the Plaintiff if the injunction is not granted. The Court directed the Defendants to comply with the Order XXXIX Rule 3 of the Civil Procedure Code (CPC) within one week.

The Court delivered the following directions:

“(1)The Defendant Nos.2 to 6 and other sellers, who are listing their products on Meesho.com platform are restrained from reproducing, copying, publishing and imitating any of the designs of the Plaintiff’s clothes or even reproducing the images including the photographs of the Plaintiff.

(2)The said Defendants are also restrained from copying the Plaintiff’s designs, which are extracted above for a comparative illustration as also any other designs/images of the Plaintiff, in respect of its clothing.

(3)The Defendant No.1- Meesho.com shall also reveal all the available details of the said sellers including the address, mobile numbers, email addresses, total sales made by the sellers, GST details, payments made to the sellers since the time listings have been put up.

(4)If there are any payments, which are still to be made by the Defendant No.1 to the sellers, the same shall be held back till further orders.

(5)The Plaintiff shall give a complete list of infringing URLs to ld. Counsel for the Defendant No.1 within five working days in order to enable the Defendant No.1 to take down the said listings. The said taking down shall be carried out within 72 hours.

(6)The Defendant No.1 shall ensure that the geographic address of all the sellers is clearly generated with the invoice, which is published on the platform”.

Accordingly, the Court listed the matter for November 17.

Cause Title: Tibra Collection v Fashnear Technologies Private Limited & Ors.

Click here to read/download Order