Law: Copyrights Ordinance, 1962

Section: 10, 9 ,28 & 39

(a) Copyright Ordinance (XXXIV of 1962)------Ss. 10, 9 & 39---Claim of exclusive copyright---Requirements---Held, in order to avail such monopoly in the manuscript and to claim exclusive copyright thereof, it must have somewhere been got registered under the provisions of copyright law---Where there was no document on record indicative of the fact that manuscript used by the publisher had ever been registered in accordance with law and if any such document ever existed in favour of the publisher and not placed on record, the claim of publisher was liable to be rejected on this score alone. Noor Khan's case 1984 SCMR 681 and Ch. Abdul Ghani's case 1988 SCMR 390 fol.(b) Copyright Ordinance (XXXIV of 1962)------S. 28---Protection of typography and term of protection---Scope---Held, even if the publisher had any right in the typographic arrangement of the editions of publication, it was to subsist for a period of twenty fine years from the beginning of the calendar year next following the year in which the edition was first published---Where there was no evidence on record, which palpably seemed to have been suppressed, as to when the script was first published because such printing had remained in vogue for many decades even beyond twenty fine years, no case of copyright involvement had been made out in circumstances.ORDER SARDAR MUHAMMAD RAZA KHAN, J.---All these petitions involving common questions of law and fact and common judgment, are taken up together. Taj Company Limited which, according to learned counsel, is named after liquidation as Taj Company (Pvt.) Limited and is so prayed to be substituted, seeks leave to appeal from the judgment dated 7-4-2003, passed by learned Lahore High Court in Intra Court Appeal, whereby, the appeal was dismissed in limine, upholding the judgment dated 11-6-2001 of a learned Judge in chambers, dismissing the writ petition. 2. Taj Company is engaged, inter alia, in the job of printing and publishing the Holy Qur'an. It claims that it has a peculiar manuscript in which the Holy Qur'an is being printed for decades and that no other printer or publisher, like the respondent, had the right to use such…