Copyright Act, 1957 Section 59

The defendants claimed to be in the
business, inter alia, of publishing guides or what is in this part of the country called
Kunji or Dukki. It was the case of the defendants that the textbook of the plaintiff
subject matter of the suit was prescribed by the Guru Nanak Dev University,
Amritsar for the students of BA Part I, II and III; that they were merely for the
facility of the students and for better understanding of the subject matter by the
students publishing the guides; that the introduction before each exercise in the two
publications were different; that the illustrations in the textbook of the plaintiff
were not existing in the publication of the defendants; that while the answers in the
plaintiffs publication were at the end of the book, the questions and answers were
together in the publication of the defendants; that while the plaintiffs publication
contains two choice of answers for most of the questions, the defendants publication
gave only one answer. It was thus the case of the defendants that the plaintiffs
publication being a course book of the university and the defendants being engaged
in publishing guides as aforesaid, had to naturally publish the answers as in the
plaintiffs book and could not have published different answers. The defendants have
gone to the extent of stating that they have also given credit to the plaintiff in their
publication. It was, however, contended that the format of the two books was
different. It was the case of the plaintiffs themselves that while the plaintiffs
publication was for Rs. 95 only, the defendants publications were for over Rs. 600/-.


HELD This is a striking point in the present case. Normally, the purpose of
infringers of trademark, copyright and patent is to sell and/or use counterfeit or
pirated goods at a price much lower than that of the owner of the trademark or
copyright. The infringers are able to sell at a much lower price, having not incurred
the expense which the owner has incurred in creation of work etc. However, in the
present case the plaintiff themselves claims that the book / publication of the
defendants is of a value several time more than that of the plaintiff.