EBCs Supreme Court Cases granted interim protection against Westlaw and Indlaw

A District Judge in Lucknow has passed an interim injunction against New York-based Thomson Reuters along with its Indian operations Westlaw India and Indlaw. The interim order restrains Thomson Reuters and its Indian operations from “infringing the copyrights in the literary work” of the plaintiff Eastern Book Company’s Supreme Court Cases, popularly known as SCC..A District Judge in Lucknow has passed an interim injunction against New York-based Thomson Reuters along with its Indian operations Westlaw India and Indlaw. The interim order restrains Thomson Reuters and its Indian operations from “infringing the copyrights in the literary work” of the plaintiff Eastern Book Company’s Supreme Court Cases, popularly known as SCC..Eastern Book Company (EBC) had earlier initiated a civil suit (Regular Suit 115 of 2012) against Thomson Reuters/Westlaw India/Indlaw under the Copyright Act, 1957. The suit had been filed seeking a permanent injunction restraining the Defendants from “infringement of copyright in the literary work of plaintiffs in their law reports”..While passing the order, the District Judge observed that, prima facie, the “Editorial Notes” of the Plaintiff’s SCC “are exactly tallying with those of defendant’s On-line journals”. Accordingly the Court passed an interim injunction against the Defendants while at the same time issued notice on the application for temporary injunction..As per the press release prepared by EBC, Senior Advocates Jaideep Narain Mathur and B.C. Agrawala and Advocate Sudeep Seth appeared for EBC.