Delhi HC orders raid against Meticulous Research for copyright infringement

A Pune-based firm, Markets and Markets Research Pvt Ltd has got an interim order passed by Delhi High Court against Meticulous Research for violation of its copyrights in 94 market research reports. These are in-depth market research reports with a specific focus on various sectors and industries and has a high value proposition for clients in the global market. A prima facie case was made out and the Delhi HC gave an interim order in favour of Markets and Markets and ordered the local commissioner to conduct a raid at Meticulous, in Pune.

As per the order dated March 13, the local commissioner was ordered to collect the entire electronic data to make an inventory and obtain mirror copies of all the defendants' electronic data that was stored on servers, systems, hard drives, personal devices of employees etc. This is one of the first-of-its kind order in relation to this quantified research and market intelligence industry in India. With the help of local commissioner, a raid was conducted from March 31 to April 8, at Meticulous office and data was obtained.

Markets and Markets procured three reports from Meticulous Research and compared the reports with their own reports, bearing an identical title and found them to be substantially similar.

Markets and Markets, further filed a comparison of 91 reports’ titles and Table of Contents, which they procured from Meticulous’s website which were also found to be similar. It is the contention of Markets and Markets that Meticulous Research along with other defendants are copying the format and contents and using the same to prepare their own reports.

Talking to Bizz Buzz, Anoop Garg, Co-Founder and Executive Director, Markets and Markets said, “We found that some of our important market research reports with a specific focus on various sectors and industries have been used by the defenders for commercial purpose. These are high value research reports and our entire business value proposition has been built around providing very insightful in-depth research reports using various data points to our clients across the globe.” This infringement of copyright has huge implications on our business. We are happy that Delhi High Court has taken cognizance of all the facts and passed an interim order asking the local commissioner to inspect and collect the evidence for the matter. Based on the findings from the raid, we will contemplate filing a criminal case against the accused. The findings certainly will fast forward the legal proceedings and help the court to reach a reasoned conclusion, he said.