The defendant argued that as the designs were not registered under the Design Act 2000 and as the artistic work for which copyright is alleged to exist is actually a design, which comes under the purview of the Design Act, no copyright protection was available. Further, they contended that textile designs do not constitute artistic work under the Act and are excluded from protection.

The Court decided that the definition of design under the Designs Act does not include artistic work as defined in Copyright Act. So the exclusion from copyright protection does not apply if any party is able to bring his case within the framework of the Copyright Act. Following this, the court held that the plaintiffs’ work was an original artistic work and entitled for protection under the Copyright Act.

As for the defendant’s arguments that the motifs and designs being used on the fabric were made by an industrial process and would not stand as a piece of art by itself and so had to be registered as a design, the court clarified that although the designs were capable of being registered under the Designs Act, they still enjoyed copyright protection since they were not repeated more than fifty times.

The case again brings to the fore the interface between copyright and design protection, which has special relevance in the fashion industry and confirms that limited edition designs they can be considered artistic works and enjoy copyright protection as long as less than fifty copies are produced.