Intermediaries' Obligation to Pursue Complaints Against Infringers: Analysing the Latest Interpretation

The recent interim order dated March 1, 2023, issued by the Delhi High Court in Samridhi Enterprises vs. Flipkart Internet Private Ltd.[1] had sparked a lot of debate and confusion among the public concerning the liability of an intermediary. As per the order of the High Court, an intermediary is not obligated to take action in cases of infringement reported by their users. The Hon’ble Court delved deeply into the interpretation of Rule 3 of the IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, on the question of whether there exists an obligation on the part of intermediaries to act on complaints against infringers.   

Facts

The plaintiff was in the business of manufacturing and selling car covers under the marks “UK Blue” and “Autofact” and had been selling them on Flipkart since 2018. The plaintiff happened to notice that some other entities started to copy their designs, looks and marketing strategies on the Flipkart platform itself. Apart from the fact that the covers were identical, the infringers also sold these covers in a fashion similar to that of the plaintiff’s company to create confusion and boost their sales.

The plaintiff had informed and reported to Flipkart about the infringement of their products by placing screenshots and other similar evidences of infringement committed by the infringer on record. The platform refused to take any action against the infringers and advised the plaintiff to approach a court of law for redressal of IPR disputes.

The plaintiff approached the Delhi High Court, citing that Flipkart cannot act as an intermediary if it fails to adhere to its obligations as an intermediary and to observe important due diligence mandated by Rule 3(2) of the IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.

Law Involved

Rule 3(1)(b)(iv) requires intermediaries to inform their users of their privacy policy, rules and regulations and user agreement and shall make reasonable efforts to ensure that any information that infringes any patent, copyright, trademark, or other proprietary rights shall not be hosted, displayed, uploaded, modified, published, transmitted, stored, updated, or shared by the intermediary.

Rule 3(2)(a) of the IT rules requires the intermediary to publish on its website the details of the grievance officer and the mechanism by which a user could complain about any possible violations. Further, it requires the officer to acknowledge the complaint within 24 hours and resolve the issue within a period of 15 days.  

The plaintiff relied on these two sections to further their claim of infringement against Flipkart. 

Rule 3 (2)(1) (proviso) provides for intermediaries to acknowledge any complaint within 24 hours and resolve all such complaints within 15 days from their receipt. Moreover, the proviso also calls upon the intermediary to develop appropriate safeguards to avoid any misuse by users.

The Ruling

The Hon’ble Court was of the opinion that Rule 3(2)(a) only envisages complaints regarding violations of the obligation imposed on the intermediary under the rules. There is no scope for the intermediary to take any kind of action against the infringer upon receipt of the complaint. The same argument was also put forth by the court when the question surrounding Rule 3(1)(b)(iv) was raised, and the court clarified that the rule merely provides for intermediaries to inform users not to display or host infringing content. The rule does not mandate or require the intermediary to take any action upon receipt of the complaint of infringement.   

The Hon’ble Court stated that it cannot read into IT rules something that the rules do not contain expressly or by necessary implication. It further said that, “where the applicable statutory rules do not envisage action being taken by an intermediary merely on the complaint being made by an aggrieved victim or user regarding infringement of intellectual property rights, by content posted on the platform of the intermediary, the court cannot, by placing reliance on an internal policy of a particular intermediary, read into Clause 3 any such requirement, especially where such a provision existed in the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 and has consciously been omitted in the 2021 Rules”.  

The Hon’ble Court was of the opinion that the complaint against Flipkart that it is not taking action does not appear to be sustainable due to the above-mentioned reasons. However, a prima facie case of copyright violation was made out by the court and in order to protect the plaintiff from any further damages, an interlocutory injunction was granted against listing the alleged infringing content.

General Observations 

Though the Hon’ble Court did grant the injunction to protect the plaintiff from the ongoing infringement occurring on the platform, the main essence of the IT Act and rules was not taken into consideration while discharging Flipkart of any liability.

The plaintiff erred in not considering the many precedents laid by this very same court. For instance, in Super Cassettes Industries Ltd. vs. Myspace Inc. & Anr1, the court said that “I find that there is no impact of the provisions of Section 79 of the IT Act (as amended in 2009) on copyright infringements relating to internet wrongs where intermediaries are involved and the said provision cannot curtail the rights of the copyright owner by operation of the proviso of Section 81 which carves out an exception for cases relating to copyright or patent infringement”. 

The case witnessed that the Indian Copyright Act, 1957, overrode the provision of the safe harbour granted by the IT Act under Section 79. The Hon’ble Court relied on Section 81 of the IT Act, which provides for an exemption for people exercising their rights under the Copyright Act and the Patent Act. The Hon’ble Court should have recognised this precedent and acknowledged the obligation it posed to the intermediary to remove such infringing products from its platform.   

It doesn’t end here. The court should have considered in what instance the immunity available for intermediaries will be impacted under Section 79 of the IT Act. Section 79(3)(b) of the IT Act states that upon receiving actual knowledge of an unlawful act connected to the computer resource controlled by the intermediary, the intermediary shall expeditiously remove or disable access to such infringing material. If such action is not undertaken by the intermediary, it shall lose the safe harbour guaranteed by Section 79. If safe harbour protection is not available, then allowing an infringement to take place on their platform may constitute abetment and unlawful activity which in turn would make them liable under the law of the land.  

Another striking part of the order is that, even though the Hon’ble Court completely relied on the IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, the court failed to read into Rule 3 (2) (1) of the IT Rules 2021. The proviso of the rule clearly stipulates that any complaint received from the user other than under Subclauses (i), (iv), and (ix) needs to be expeditiously resolved within 72 hours by the grievance officer. That does not take away the primary obligation of the intermediary to act within the 15 days mandated in the main provision in relation to such excluded matters, including cases of IP infringement. It is astonishing that the court or the parties gave more emphasis to the proviso than the main clause under Rule 3(2)(a)(i). 

Initially, Rule 3(2)(b) was worded as follows: “(i) acknowledge the complaint within twenty-four hours and dispose off such complaint within a period of fifteen days from the date of its receipt;  

(ii) receive and acknowledge any order, notice or direction issued by the Appropriate Government, any competent authority or a court of competent jurisdiction.”.   

On October 28, 2022, the government amended the above rule to read as follows: “acknowledge the complaint within twenty-four hours and resolve such complaint within a period of fifteen days from the date of its receipt: 

Provided that the complaint in the nature of request for removal of information or communication link relating to clause (b) of sub-rule (1) of rule 3, except sub-clauses (i), (iv) and (ix), shall be acted upon as expeditiously as possible and shall be resolved within seventy-two hours of such reporting;  

Provided further that appropriate safeguards may be developed by the intermediary to avoid any misuse by users;” 

The intention of this amendment is to prescribe faster action for certain kinds of wrongdoings and expect them to act within 72 hours. At the same time, for those others (sub-clauses (i), (iv) and (ix)) the original time frame of 15 days for taking action remains. Without a doubt, the goal of this amendment is not to encourage platform users to behave irresponsibly or complacently despite being aware that the platform is frequently used to violate intellectual property rights. It merely provides them with sufficient time and excludes the requirement of compliance within 72 hours.

The intermediary is still obligated to undertake the due diligence described in Rule 3(1)(b)(iv), and if they do not do so and do not take action within fifteen days even after becoming aware of the infringement, the immunity from liability specified in Section 79 will end. The safe harbour will be eliminated because the proviso to Section 81 of the IT Act clearly indicates that IP rights are to be expected to be protected by the intermediary.

Conclusion

The Hon’ble Court was right in granting the injunction in favour of the plaintiff to restrain Flipkart from allowing such infringing products on their platforms.

However, the Hon’ble Court erred by not making a harmonious reading of Rule 3 (2) (a) of the IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, with Section 79 (3) (b) and the proviso to Section 81 of the IT Act. An isolated reading of the provision and discharging Flipkart of their liability under the IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 seems to be an oversight.

The proviso appended to the said section provides that nothing contained in this act shall restrict the exercising of any right by any person under the Copyright Act. This, along with Section 79 (3) of the IT Act, mandates the intermediary not to conspire, abet or aid any infringement and to remove the infringing material on receiving actual knowledge of it.  

The above-referred order will only help the intermediaries and platforms to behave irresponsibly and indifferently even when an intellectual property owner notifies them of infringement on their platforms. It compels aggrieved intellectual property owners to initiate legal action for every infringement, which is expensive to carry out. IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, was primarily made to make the platforms more responsible and ethical. Allowing them to act irresponsibly through a limited interpretation of law is unconscionable.

References:

1. CS (COMM) 63/2023

The recent interim order dated March 1, 2023, issued by the Delhi High Court in Samridhi Enterprises vs. Flipkart Internet Private Ltd. (CS (COMM) 63/2023) had sparked a lot of debate and confusion among the public concerning the liability of an intermediary. Though the Hon’ble Court did grant the injunction to protect the plaintiff from the on-going infringement occurring on the platform, the main essence of the IT Act and rules was not taken into consideration while discharging Flipkart of any liability.

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Liabilities of Intermediaries In Trademark Infringement Cases In India

The boon and bane of market vis-à-vis consumers has further intensified with the shift of the current generation to e-commerce. The boon has been the ease, economy, and the time efficiency that online trade offers while the bane has been the easy trafficking of counterfeits and threat to customer data. Although efforts are being made by the government to address the issues from a consumer/buyer point of view, not much has been done from a business/seller point of view. One worrying concern for businesses is the constant infringement of their trademarks which is suffering in the lack of necessary legislation or a decisive judicial pronouncement. Most businesses believe that intermediaries must be liable for allowing infringers sell goods on their platform without adequate due diligence, however, liability has not been conclusively attributed in this regard yet.

One prominent case that addressed the liability of online marketplaces in trademark infringement was Christian Louboutin SAS vs Nakul Bajaj & Others[i] decided on 2nd November 2018 by the Hon’ble Delhi High Court. But before we delve into the particular case or understand the liability of intermediaries, let us first understand who falls within the ambit of intermediaries and when is an intermediary exempted from liability.

 

Definition of Intermediaries

 

The term “intermediaries” is defined under section 2(w) of Information Technology Act, 2000 which says

 “Intermediary” – with respect to any particular electronic records, means any person who on behalf of another person receives, stores or transmits that record or provides any service with respect to that record and includes telecom service providers, network service providers, internet service providers, web-hosting service providers, search engines, online payment sites, online-auction sites, online-market places and cyber cafes.

 

Exemption from the liability/ Safe Harbour Provision

 

Section 79 of the Information Technology Act provides certain immunities to the intermediaries. That the intermediary shall not be liable for any third-party information, data or communication link made available or hosted by him. Section 79 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 is extracted below:

  • Notwithstanding anything contained in any law for the time being in force but subject to the provisions of sub-sections (2) and (3), an intermediary shall not be liable for any third party information, data, or communication link made available or hosted by him.

 

  • The provisions of sub-section (1) shall apply if– (a) the function of the intermediary is limited to providing access to a communication system over which information made available by third parties is transmitted or temporarily stored or hosted; or (b) the intermediary does not– (i) initiate the transmission, (ii) select the receiver of the transmission, and (iii) select or modify the information contained in the transmission; (c) the intermediary observes due diligence while discharging his duties under this Act and also observes such other guidelines as the Central Government may prescribe in this behalf.

 

  • The provisions of sub-section (1) shall not apply if– (a) the intermediary has conspired or abetted or aided or induced, whether by threats or promise or otherwise in the commission of the unlawful act; (b) upon receiving actual knowledge, or on being notified by the appropriate Government or its agency that any information, data or communication link residing in or connected to a computer resource controlled by the intermediary is being used to commit the unlawful act, the intermediary fails to expeditiously remove or disable access to that material on that resource without vitiating the evidence in any manner.

Section 79 of the Act elaborates on the exemption from liabilities of intermediaries and Section 79(2)(c) mentions that intermediaries must observe due diligence while discharging their duties and observe such other guidelines as prescribed by the Central Government. Accordingly, Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines) Rules, 2011 were notified on 11th April 2011.

Though the Indian Courts have reviewed Section 79 of IT Act, 2000 (Safe Harbour Provisions) on various facts and situation including in the cases of protecting online free speech (Shreya Singhal V. Union of India[ii]), uploading content and copyright violations (My Space Inc Vs. Super Cassettes Industries Limited[iii]) and design infringement (Kent Ro Systems Limited & Anr Vs. Amit Kotak and Ors[iv])etc, the position that is considered by Indian courts on violation of trademarks rights by e-commerce platforms and the extent of protection awarded to them was unclear till recent past.  

The landmark judgment passed by the Hon’ble Delhi Court in Christian Louboutin SAS vs Nakul Bajaj & Others tried to establish the liability of intermediaries on trademark infringement cases and the same is discussed below:

 

Christian Louboutin SAS vs Nakul Bajaj & Others

 

The Plaintiffs (Christian Louboutin), manufacturer of luxury shoes well known for their red soles filed a trademark infringement suit against an e-commerce website www.darveys.com (Defendants). The Plaintiffs had also obtained trademark registration for the word mark, device mark CHRISTIAN LOUBOUTIN and also for their red sole mark in India. The Plaintiffs claimed that their products were sold only through an authorized network of exclusive distributors.

The Defendants were selling various luxury products on their website including the Plaintiff’s products by claiming that they were 100% authentic. The Plaintiffs alleged that apart from selling and offering counterfeit products on the Defendants website, the image of the founder of the Plaintiff and the names Christian and Louboutin were used as meta tags. Further, the Defendants’ website gave an impression that it was in some manner sponsored, affiliated and approved for sale of variety of luxury products bearing the mark Christian Louboutin and this resulted in infringement of trademark rights and violation of personality rights of Mr. Christian Louboutin.

On perusal of the pleadings the Hon’ble Court observed that no factual issues arose in the determination of the case as the Defendants had not disputed the proprietary rights of the Plaintiff over their brand Christian Louboutin. The only defence put forth by the Defendants was the safe harbour provision under Section 79 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 that they were mere intermediary who enabled booking of products from any of the 287 boutiques/sellers across the globe using their online platform.  The Defendants contended that the products sold through their website was genuine, however, they were not providing after sales warranty or services.

The only aspect to be decided was whether the Defendants’ use of the Plaintiffs’ mark, logo was justified under Section 79 of the Information Act, 2000 or not.

The Hon’ble court perused the Defendants’ website and observed that customers were required to pay a membership fee in order to shop from the Defendants’ website and the said website also provided an authenticity guarantee to return twice the money if the products turned out to be fake or not of expected quality. Furthermore, in the terms and conditions, the Defendants claimed that they facilitated the purchase of original products and the prices of the products were maintained and changed at the discretion of the Defendants. Quality checks of the products were carried out by a third-party team who examined the precise details of the products that were shipped to the customers. The invoices generated were those of the website (defendant) company.  

In order to determine whether an online marketplace or e-commerce website is an intermediary, the Hon’ble Court elaborately examined the nature of services (provided a detailed list of 26 possible services that could be performed by intermediary) that would fall within the ambit of service contemplated in the definition of intermediary. Accordingly, entities that performed tasks such as identification of the seller, providing transport for seller, employing delivery personnel for delivering the product, accepting cash for sale etc and the measures taken by the online platforms  to ensure that unlawful acts were not committed by the sellers were taken into consideration for determining the role of the online marketplace. Considering the services played by the Defendant in the case, the Hon’ble Court was convinced that the Defendant exercised complete control over their sale of products and they were much more than just an intermediary.

The Hon’ble Court further noted that the e-commerce website and online marketplaces were required to operate with caution if they wished to enjoy the immunity provided to the intermediaries under Section 79 of the IT Act. When an e-commerce website is involved in or conducts its business in such a manner which would see presence of large number of elements (services and measures taken by sellers referred above), it could cross the line from being an intermediary to active participant. In such cases, online marketplace could be liable for infringement in view of its active participation.  The conduct of intermediaries in failing to observe due diligence with respect to IPR could amount to conspiring or abetting, aiding or inducing unlawful conduct and may lose the exemption to which intermediaries are entitled. When an e-commerce company claims exemption under Section 79 of IT Act, it ought to ensure that it does not have active participation in the selling process. The presence of any elements which indicates active participation could deprive intermediaries of the exception.

Finally, the Hon’ble Court ascertained whether there was any falsification of Plaintiff’s trademark under Section 2(2)(c), 101 and 102 of the Trademarks Act, 1999.  These provisions were being looked at to ascertain what constituted conspiring, abetting, aiding, or inducing, the commission of an unlawful act, in the context of trademarks rights. The Hon’ble Court concluded that the use of Plaintiffs’ mark in respect of genuine goods would not be infringement and in respect of counterfeit goods, it could constitute infringement. Thus, any online marketplace or e-commerce website which allows storing of counterfeit goods would be falsifying the mark.

In view of the above, the Hon’ble Court noted that the Defendant was not entitled to protection under Section 79 of the Information Technology Act. Further, the use of the Plaintiffs’ mark, the name and photograph of the founder without permission and the sale of products without ensuring genuineness constituted violation of the Plaintiffs rights. Pertaining to the contention of meta tagging, the Court held that Defendants’ use of the meta tagging would constitute infringement as upheld by the Delhi Court in another case (Kapil Wadhawa v. Samsung Electronics[v]).

In the above circumstance, the suit was decreed directing the Defendant to disclose the details of all its sellers, their addressee, contact details on the website, and prior to uploading a product bearing Plaintiffs’ mark, Defendant was required to obtain concurrence before offering for sale on its platform.

It is apparent that the legislative intent is to protect genuine intermediaries and it cannot be extended to those persons who are not intermediaries and are an active participants in the unlawful act.

 

Post Louboutin Case

 

The test laid down in Christian Louboutin case containing the detailed list of 26 possible tasks/services that could be performed by intermediaries were applied to various other cases such as Loreal v. Brandworld and Another[vi] and in Skull Candy Inc v. Shri Shyam Telecom and Others[vii] to ascertain the liability of intermediaries in online marketplace or e-commerce website.  

In this regard, it is pertinent to note the case of Amway India Enterprises Private Limited v. 1Mg Technologies Private Limited and Another[viii] where a single bench of the Delhi High Court passed an order restraining numerous e-commerce platforms such as Amazon, flipkart, snapdeal etc from the sale of direct selling products without the consent of direct selling entities. This decision of the single bench was set aside by the Division bench of Delhi High Court on 31st January 2020 and with this again the position of law pertaining to the intermediary liabilities in trademark infringement cases remains unclear. However, it is observed from various intellectual property rights cases that courts have placed higher responsibility to take down the contents that infringes the IP rights and is titling towards making these e-commerce platforms more responsible for their content.

Now that the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines Amendment) Rules, 2018 framed to make social media platforms accountable for their contents is on the verge of being notified, it is apparent that internet intermediaries won’t be able to  take shelter under the safe harbour protection of the IT Act, 2000 effortlessly.  The new rules intend to tighten the noose by filtering out information that threaten public health or safety. The rules make it mandatory for intermediaries to provide information or assistance to government agencies within 72 hours of formal communication,  enable tracing out of originator of information on its platform by deploying technology based automated tools for proactively identifying and removing or disabling public access to unlawful information and by removing access to unlawful content within 24 hours upon receiving a court order or being notified. It also requires intermediaries to incorporate a company if they have more than 5 lakh users in India and to have a permanent registered office in India as well as appoint a nodal person for contact with law enforcement.  

From an IP perspective, the roles and responsibilities of intermediaries are likely to become more crucial in IPR infringement cases. The safe harbour protection must be granted to intermediaries only if they play the role of a facilitator.  Since e-commerce has flourished like a green bay tree in the massive Indian market, the government is mooting the idea of having a separate regulatory body and a separate e-commerce law that provides for periodic audit, storage of data,  consumer protection,  export promotion and other provisions for promotion of e-commerce. The new law supposedly proposes to impose joint liability for counterfeit products on e-commerce entity as well as sellers. If approved, this would substantially address the trademark concerns and ensure fair competition.

 

 

References

[i] CS (COMM) 344/2018, I.As. 19124/2014, 20912/2014, 23749/2014 & 9106/2015

[ii] AIR 2015 SC 1523

[iii] 236 (2017) DLT 478

[iv] 2017 (69) PTC 551 (DEL)

[v] FAO(OS) 93/2012

[vi] CS(COMM) 980/2016 & I.A. 24186/2014

[vii] CS(COMM) 979/2016 & I.A. 24578/2014

[viii] CS (OS) 410/2018

 

Image Credits: Photo by Mark König on Unsplash

From an IP perspective, the roles and responsibilities of intermediaries are likely to become more crucial in IPR infringement cases. The safe harbour protection must be granted to intermediaries only if they play the role of a facilitator.  Since e-commerce has flourished like a green bay tree in the massive Indian market, the government is mooting the idea of having a separate regulatory body and a separate e-commerce law that provides for periodic audit, storage of data,  consumer protection,  export promotion, and other provisions for promotion of e-commerce.

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