Delhi High Court passes John Doe order to protect IPR of sitcom Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah

The Delhi High Court recently restrained a host of YouTube channels, websites, and social media handles from infringing or copying any trademark, title, character, or any other intellectual property of the popular sitcom Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah [Neela Film Productions Private Limited v TaarakMehtaKaOoltahChashmah.com & Ors]..Justice Mini Pushkarna passed the ex parte ad interim injunction order on August 14.It would cover platforms illegally selling the show’s merchandise, copying its character, or creating Artificial Intelligence (AI) images, deepfakes and animated videos, including John Doe (unknown) defendants.“An order of ex parte ad-interim injunction is passed thereby restraining the defendant nos. 1 to 12 and 14 to 21, (including the John Doe parties), their owners, partners, proprietors, officers, servants, employees and all others in capacity of principal or agent, acting for and on their behalf or anyone claiming through by or under it, from in any manner, hosting, streaming, broadcasting, transmitting, exhibiting, making available for viewing and downloading, providing access to and communicating to the public displaying, uploading, modifying, publishing, updating, sharing (including to its subscribers and users), offering for sale on their websites, through the internet, or in any manner or platform whatsoever, any content, goods or services, that in any manner whatsoever, amounts to infringement/passing off, of the plaintiff’s copyrighted material/ registered trademarks, including, but not limited to the title, the Characters, Format and Underlying Materials in the said show or anything else, which otherwise amounts to an infringement of the plaintiff’s Copyright/registered trademarks/passing off of the goods/services offered by the defendants,” the Court ordered..Neela Film Productions Private Limited, the producer of Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashma has approached the High Court arguing that they own the title, the format, characters, characterizations, character mannerisms, characteristic dialogues, voice, dialogue delivery, mannerisms and all other intellectual property rights (IPR) in the show.It was stated that several social media accounts, websites, and channels have come up that are infringing on their rights and even selling their products online.The Court was informed that apart from creating the videos, animations, and deepfakes, pornographic content is also being shown using the characters of the show..After considering the case, the Bench said that the plaintiff (Neela Film Productions) had made a prima facie case for the grant of injunction.It, therefore, passed the injunction order..Advocates Pravin Anand, Ameet Naik, Dhruv Anand, Madhu Gododia, Udita Patro, Rohil Bandekar, Nimrat Singh, Deveesha Tudekar, Dhananjay Khanna and Sujoy Mukherji appeared for the plaintiff, Neela Film Productions.Advocates Mamta Rani Jha, Rohan Ahuja, Shruttima Ehersa, Vatsalya Vishal, Anishi Sodani, Rahul Choudhary and Diya Viswanath represented Google..[Read Order]