JUDGMENT

Low Hop Bing J:

Application

The suit before me relates to an intellectual property matter. The application for determination is the plaintiff's application in encl. (6) which prays for summary judgment against the defendant under O. 14 of the Rules of the High Court 1980 for injunction, delivery up of infringing reproductions, disclosures, damages, interest and costs.

In the course of submissions, some of the aforesaid prayers were not pursued, as a result of which the reliefs sought were reduced to the following items:

1. An injunction to restrain the defendant from infringing the plaintiff's copyright in the said plaintiff's works by reproducing the same in three-dimensional form or otherwise from the said works and selling the same or offering for sale or exposing the same for sale, importing, exporting, distributing or advertising or in whatever way dealing with the reproduction of the plaintiff's said works without the plaintiff's licence;

2. An order for delivery up of the following to the plaintiff within seven days from the date of the judgment:

(i) all infringing reproductions of the plaintiff's said works and articles; and

(ii) all documents and materials relating to the or disposal of the infringing reproductions of the plaintiff's works,

and thereafter to file an affidavit verifying the same.

3. An order that the defendant discloses the following within seven days from the date of the judgment:

(i) the name and address of everyone who has supplied or offered to supply the defendant;

(ii) the name and address of whom the defendant has supplied, or offered to do so, with the infringing reproductions of the plaintiff's works; and

(iii) full details of the dates and quantities of every such supply and offer.

(The aforesaid items vizinjunction, delivery up and discovery are collectively referred to as "the reliefs sought").

Counsel's Submission And Court's Decision

Preliminary Objection

Several preliminary issues were raised by Encik Peter Gan, learned counsel for the defendant, and such issues relate eg to non-compliance with Form 18 in Appendix A to the Rules of the High Court 1980 and the failure to endorse the date of filing on the affidavit.

Cik MK Lam and Cik Sheila Jeya Balan argued, inter alia, that the issues were technical rather than substantive objections.

Without having to expend too much time and effort on these issues which are fraught with technicalities, I am of the view that the short answer is to be found in PU(A) 197/2002 which came into force on 16 May 2002, wherein comprehensive amendments were made to the Rules of the High Court 1980. O. 1A states that in administering any of the rules herein, the court or a judge shall have regard to the justice of the particular case and not only to technical non-compliance with any of the rules herein, while O. 2 r. 3 expressly says that a court or judge shall not allow any preliminary objection by any party to any cause or matter or proceedings only on the ground of non-compliance with any of these Rules unless the court or judge is of the opinion that such non-compliance has occasioned a substantial miscarriage of justice.

In my view, the technicalities raised for the defendant are strictly in relation to non-compliance and disregarding them would occasion no miscarriage of justice. Beauford Baru Sdn Bhd v. Gopalan Krishnan a/l VK Gopalan[2002] 3 CLJ 686 demonstrates the new trendsetter in rejecting preliminary objections founded on technical grounds. In that case, I made the following observations:

As we move towards the era of facilitating the process of litigation, the raising of preliminary objections on technical grounds would certainly and clearly be a thing of the past. Quite recently, the Court of Appeal in United Malayan Banking Corp Bhd v. Ernest Cheong Yong Yin[2001] 2 CLJ 31, through the authoritative judgment of Ahmad Fairuz JCA (now Ag President of the Court of Appeal and CJ (Malaya)) expressly stated that a preliminary objection on a m