JUDGMENT :

N. Sathish Kumar, J.

1. This suit has been filed for permanent injunction restraining the defendants and their men from in any manner infringing the plaintiffs' copyright on the literary work of compilation of the book titled "Review of Post Graduate Medical Entrance Examination" by printing, publishing and offering for sale "PG Plus" or "PG Plus 2003" or any other book which is substantial reproduction of the plaintiffs' compilation titled "Review of Post Graduate Medical Entrance Examination" or in any way infringing the plaintiffs' copyright in the subject book and for damages.

2. The brief facts of the plaintiffs case is as follows:

2.1. It is the case of the plaintiff that the first plaintiff authored books of compilation of multi choice questions and answers under the title 'Review of Post Graduate Medical Entrance Examinations' ever since 1988 every year and the second plaintiff is the publisher of the same. The first plaintiff is a senior consultant cardio thoracic surgery by profession. The plaintiff, seeing the difficulties experienced by the candidates preparing for the post graduate medical entrance examinations and with the encouragement given by professors and doctors, compiled multiple choice questions and answers and first published in the year 1988 under the title "Review of Post Graduate Medical Entrance Examinations'. The plaintiff has spent considerable amount of time, skill, capital, labour and expenses for compilation of the book deriving important questions from various entrance examination question papers from the year 1978. The first plaintiff had put in enormous task in collecting these question papers. He had put in more efforts to find correct answers to all the questions contained therein by referring to standard textbooks, contacting experts in the respective fields in India and abroad, browsing through internet etc. The latest volume contain around 18,000 multi choice questions. This voluminous task was not done overnight but was built up over a period 15 long years ever since 1988 as follows:

The following are unique features of the plaintiffs' compilation work:

a. The questions are arranged and grouped topic-wise for easy reading and coverage by the users.

b. The answers are given for the questions at the bottom of the respective pages for easy reference instead of giving at the end of the book or the end of the topic.

c. The questions are arranged year-wise under each topic to the possible extent so as to enable the users to ascertain the latest trend of questions asked.

d. the questions are selected from the examinations conducted right from the year 1978. This feature finds due prominence on the cover of the book.

Therefore, the plaintiff has become the owner of the copyright on the original compilation work in the book titled "Review of Post Graduate Medical Entrance Examination" and the second plaintiff who publishes the book has commercial interest over the same.

2.2. While the facts remain so, in September 2003, the plaintiff came across a publication of multiple choice questions by the first defendant printed under the name and style "PG Plus 2003" containing inter alia the multiple choice questions from the year 1978 to 2003 wherein it was mentioned as second edition. When the matter was further looked into, it was found that the defendants had already published their 'First Edition' in the year 2002 under the title 'PG Plus'. The first defendant has published these book through the second defendant. When the first plaintiff went through the books of the defendants, it was found that the major portion appearing in the defendants' books are those questions that we