Delhi High Court grants interim relief to EXCHANGE22 in copyright dispute with MYFAB11

The Delhi High Court recently granted an ex parte ad-interim injunction in favour of sports fantasy platform EXCHANGE22 in a copyright battle with another gaming app, MYFAB11 [Hulm Entertainment Pvt Ltd v. Fantasy Sports Myfab11 Pvt Ltd]..Justice Jyoti Singh found that the plaintiffs had made out a prima facie case for the grant of the injunction.“Balance of convenience lies in favour of the Plaintiffs and they are likely to suffer irreparable harm in case the injunction, as prayed for, is not granted,” the order stated..MYFAB11 was thus restrained from making available for download or in any manner using without authorisation, the copyrighted works of EXCHANGE 22 through its app or any other similar app..The makers of EXCHANGE 22 had come up with the idea of integrating the features of a fantasy sports league and the stock market in the year 2010, and eventually launched a beta version of the app in 2019. Shortly after this, the components of the game were registered as copyrighted works.It was their contention that they had developed an attractive Graphical User Interface with a unique programme structure and placement of information with a lot of hard work and through investment of huge sums of money..The Court was informed that a day before the first Indian Premier League (IPL) match of this season, MYFAB11 launched a new version of its app, fraudulently launching an updated version of the game identical to that of the EXCHANGE 22.It was argued that the new update was a substantial reproduction of the EXCHANGE22's registered copyright, and that MYFAB11 had copied the concept, workings, features, and execution of the former's buy/sell interface. This would result in a consequential monetary damage, loss of revenue as well as reputation to the plaintiffs, it was stated..After considering these submissions, Justice Singh concluded that EXCHANGE22 had made out a prima facie case for grant of ex parte ad-interim injunction..Senior Advocate Sandeep Sethi, with Advocates Sudeep Chatterjee, Tejveer Singh Bhatia, Shifa Nagar, Kiratraj Sadana and Tanya Arora appeared for the developers of EXCHANGE22..[Read Order]