Sale Of Counterfeit Apple Accessories Cannot Be Prosecuted As Copyright Offence: Gujarat High Court Quashes FIR

The Gujarat High Court on Monday quashed a copyright infringement FIR against a shopkeeper accused of selling counterfeit Apple accessories, ruling that the allegations essentially concerned trademark misuse rather than copyright infringement.

Justice P.M. Raval observed that the FIR and seizure memo did not identify any specific literary or artistic work allegedly copied from Apple.

“The dispute essentially pertains to the alleged falsification of a registered trademark on commercial accessories, which attracts the Trade Marks Act, 1999, and not the Copyright Act, 1957,” the court ruled.

The case concerned an FIR registered on October 19, 2022, at Kalupur Police Station in Ahmedabad against Jitendrabhai Mohanbhai Kiplani, who was found at a shop called Raj Cover House. The FIR invoked Sections 51, 63 and 64 of the Copyright Act, alleging copyright infringement.

The complainant, Vishalsinh Hirasinh Jadeja, was a manager at Griffin Intellectual Property Service Pvt. Ltd., which had authorisation from Apple Inc. to take legal action against persons manufacturing or selling counterfeit Apple products and accessories bearing Apple's trademark.

According to the FIR, the company received private information about shops selling counterfeit Apple accessories. After conducting a preliminary inquiry, the complainant approached the police, following which a raid was conducted at Raj Cover House with two independent panch witnesses.

The search resulted in the seizure of AirPods, AirPods Pro, USB cables, power adapters, a smartwatch and several Apple stickers and seals. The total value of the seized articles was recorded as Rs 15,11,193.

Kiplani approached the high court under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, seeking quashing of the FIR and consequential proceedings.

His counsel argued that the seized hardware did not fall within the categories of works protected by Section 13 of the Copyright Act, such as original literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works. The argument was that AirPods, cables, adapters and smartwatches were commercial products, not copyrightable works.

If the allegations were about selling products carrying Apple's trademark without authorisation, counsel argued, the relevant provisions were Sections 103 and 104 of the Trade Marks Act, which deal with offences relating to falsification of trademarks and the sale of goods bearing false trade marks or descriptions.

The complainant took a different position. Senior Counsel argued that packaging, stickers, product literature and instruction manuals could constitute copyright-protected literary or artistic works.

The court rejected the argument on the facts of the case. Justice Raval noted that the FIR did not identify any specific literary or artistic work that had allegedly been copied.

More importantly, the court found that no instruction manuals or user leaflets were actually recovered or seized from the shop. Justice Raval observed that the complainant could not introduce a new factual basis during oral arguments when it was absent from the police recovery memo.

The court therefore held that commercial hardware such as AirPods, cables, adapters, and smartwatches could not, on the allegations made, sustain a prosecution under the Copyright Act. It observed that selling duplicate commercial products bearing a registered trademark instead raised a trademark issue under Sections 103 and 104 of the Trade Marks Act.

That route also failed because of the manner in which the raid was conducted.

Section 115(4) of the Trade Marks Act contains two important safeguards for police searches and seizures in trademark cases. Before conducting a search and seizure, the police must obtain the Registrar of Trade Marks' opinion on the facts involved in the alleged offence and abide by that opinion. The search must also be conducted by a police officer not below the rank of Deputy Superintendent of Police or an equivalent rank.

The court found that no opinion had been obtained from the Registrar of Trade Marks. Although the initial application was forwarded by the D.C.P. Zone-03 to Kalupur Police Station, the actual raid and seizure were carried out under a Police Inspector with head constables and police constables.

The court therefore held that the search and seizure did not comply with the mandatory requirements of Section 115(4).

The court was also critical of the manner in which the case had been framed.

Justice Raval observed that the complainant-company had “deliberately dressed up a pure trademark dispute as a 'Copyright Infringement'” to bypass the safeguards under the Trade Marks Act.

“Courts of law cannot act as silent spectators to such procedural circumvention,” the court held.

The court rejected the attempt to fall back on the trademark provisions after the copyright allegations failed. Allowing such a conversion, it held, would effectively permit the statutory safeguards under Section 115(4) to be bypassed.

The petition was accordingly allowed. the court quashed the FIR registered at Kalupur Police Station and all consequential proceedings arising from it against Kiplani