Business Standard is carrying a PTI report on a judgement in the Delhi High Court [PDF] in favour of Microsoft in a suit against a Mumbai firm which was preloading pirated versions of Windows on the computers it sold.
Accepting Microsoft Corporation’s plea, judge Manmohan Singh granted permanent injunction to M/s Gizgahertz [sic] and its proprietor Nimesh from using Microsoft hard-disk in its computers and selling them to the customers.
"The defendant (company) is restrained from copying/ reproducing, hard-disk loading on computers, selling/ offering for sale/ distributing/ issuing to the public pirated/ counterfeit/ unlicensed versions of Windows Vista, Microsoft Office 2007 or any other software of the plaintiffs in any manner, so as to infringe the plaintiff’s copyright," Singh said.
The judgement awarded damages worth Rs. 200, 000 + cost of suit (how much would this be worth?) to Microsoft. The report also mentions that this was an injunction suit and that there was an additional civil suit. Digging into the Delhi High Court archives further revealed that there have been six judgements in total since the beginning of 2011 in cases where Microsoft have taken companies to court for preloading their computers with counterfeit copies of Windows and other related software:
| Name | Infringement | Judgement [PDF link] | Awards |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vijay Kaushik, Supreme Peripherals, New Delhi | Jun 2004 | 02/Aug/2011 | Rs. 500,000 |
| S. Purohit, DEC Infosystems, Brahmapur, Odisha | Jan 2009 | 23/Sep/2011 | Rs. 100,000 |
| David Raju Polamuri, Teja Computers, Vishakapatnam | Feb 2006 | 18/Nov/2011 | Rs. 200,000 + costs |
| Prem Tiwari, Nitya Infotech, Mumbai | Oct 2007 | 31/Oct/2011 | Rs. 200,000 + costs |
| G-Net Technologies, Bangalore | Apr 2008 | 31/Oct/2011 | Rs. 200,000 + costs |
| Nimesh, @Gizgahertz [sic], Mumbai | Jul 2010 | 16/May/2011 | Rs. 200,000 + costs |
In all of these cases, the director of the company was named as a defendant in addition to the company itself. However, the case against the director was always dismissed in light of the damages awarded against the company. All the judgements were pronounced with the defendant(s) "ex parte" (absent).
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