M. Sathyanarayanan, J.

The appellants are the respondents/defendants in O.A.No.480 of 2018 in C.S.No.302 of 2018 and the respondent is the applicant/plaintiff.

2. The plaintiff has laid the suit in C.S.No.302 of 2018 under Section 55 of the Copy Right Act, 1957, for infringement of its copyright. Pending disposal of the suit, the respondent/plaintiff filed an application in O.A.No.480 of 2018, praying for an order of ad-interim injunction restraining the defendants, their men, servants or agents or distributors or anyone claiming under them from in any manner infringing their copy right in the artistic design marked "A" herein and affixed herein for their products of sugar or any other products by selling, reproducing, advertising or offering for sale of their goods with pouches/packing with infringing design marked "B" or any other deceptively similar to the plaintiff's artistic design marked "A". Originally interim order was granted in favour of the respondent/plaintiff. Thereafter, the appellants/defendants filed an application in A.No.4015 of 2018, praying to vacate the said interim order, contending among other things that they have the benefit of restrain of the subject, artistic design under the Trade Marks Act, 1999 under Trade Mark No.3664179, which relate back to 26.10.2017 and that registration was granted on 19.04.2018, which was prior to the institution of the suit. The learned Single Judge has taken note of the said fact and vacated the interim order, vide order dated 08.06.2018; however granted liberty to the plaintiff as well the defendants to advance their arguments afresh, not only on the issues raised in the plaint, but also in the applications filed for vacating the injunction and also on all other aspects touching the subject matter of the suit. Therefore, arguments were advanced in both applications viz., O.A.No.480 of 2018, filed seeking an interim injunction and also in A.No.4015 of 2018, filed for vacating the interim injunction.

3. Facts leading to this litigation have been narrated in detail in the impugned order dated 11.07.2018 in O.A.No.480 of 2018 and also in A.No.4015 of 2018 in C.S.No.302 of 2018 and therefore, it is unnecessary to reproduce the same here, except to cull out the relevant facts for the purpose of disposal of this appeal. For the sake of convenience, the array of parties referred to in the plaint is adopted here.

4. 4.1 It is the case of the plaintiff that it is carrying on business in the manufacture and distribution of various foods products such as Diabliss Sugar, Diabliss Herbal Lemon Tea, Diabliss mixed fruit jam etc., and created artistic design for the pouch 'Diabliss Diabetic Friendly Sugar' in June 2015 and this design was made for the plaintiff by M/s. Fifth Estate Communications Pvt. Ltd., Chennai 600 086 and the printing of flexible packing pouches was done by M/s. Darshan Flexibles Pvt. Ltd., Mysore and Print Cylinders. The plaintiff is the first owner of the copyright in the said artistic work and the artistic design has been specifically created for its products Diabliss Sugar and it has been used by it ever since June, 2015. It is the further case of the plaintiff that the first defendant had entered into an agreement with him as distributor on 10.10.2016 for various products manufactured by the plaintiff and thereby it got access to the pouches of the various products of the plaintiff. While the said business arrangement between them was going on smoothly in terms of the agreement, the plaintiff suddenly felt that off take of the goods by the first defendant was drastically falling and this developed a suspicion and moreover, for the goods supplied by the plaintiff to the first defendant, there were arrears amount payable and in this regard, several emails were sent and phone calls were made, but the first defendant failed to respond to it and did not care to settle the arrears amount.

4.2. In the meanwhile, the plaintiff came to know that a Food Exhibition