A single judge bench of Justice Prathiba Singh on July 18 granted an interim injunction in favour of RxPrism which had claimed that it had developed a novel and innovative product, My Show & Tell, a system and a method for “creating and sharing interactive content”, distinct from video advertisements and had registered it as a patent in 2020. The Delhi High Court recently restrained graphic designing platform Canva from making available its interactive content feature in India in a patent infringement lawsuit filed by an Indian tech startup RxPrism Health Systems Private Limited. A single judge bench of Justice Prathiba Singh on July 18 granted an interim injunction in favour of RxPrism which had claimed that it had developed a novel and innovative product, My Show & Tell, a system and a method for “creating and sharing interactive content”, distinct from video advertisements and had registered it as a patent in 2020.

Rejecting Canva’s contention that its Present and Record product is different, the HC analysed the steps used in both products. It observed, “After analysing the claimed features and the Defendant’s (Canva) product it is clear that the highlighting of differences between the patented claims and the Defendant’s product is an attempt to distract the Court from the overall identity”. “In fact, the working of the Defendant’s ‘Present and Record’ feature when compared with the Claims (of the plaintiff RxPrism) would demonstrate that almost all the same steps therein are present in the Defendant’s product, thus, prima facie, establishing infringement,” it added.

The HC directed, “The Defendant shall stand restrained from making available their Canva product with the ‘Present and Record’ feature, which infringes the Plaintiff’s (RxPrism) suit patent being IN360726 or use any other feature that would result in infringement of the Plaintiff’s patent IN360726″. As the High Court noted that Canva is an Australian company and has no assets or any physical business in India, it directed it to deposit Rs. 50 lakh with the Registrar General as security for RxPrism’s claims “for past use of the infringing feature in India”. It also awarded a cost of Rs. 5 lakh to RxPrism as well while adding that the interim order would not bind the final decision of the lawsuit post-trial. RxPrism had claimed that Canva’s Present and Record, which enables users to create interactive presentations with personalised visual content, infringed its patent. In its application, RxPrism sought an interim injunction restraining Canva from engaging in activities such as using, making, selling, distributing, advertising, offering for sale, et., or dealing in any product that infringes its patent. The Indian start-up also claimed Canva’s product was based on its My Show & Tell and contained the very same steps. It said due to the incorporation of this feature, which was infringing in nature, Canva’s active users grew from 30 million in June 2020 to 55 million as of April 2021, with a doubling of revenues. The HC noted My Show & Tell is centred around the creation of a system capable of being used for the purposes of describing a product or even a service on online platforms, especially, e-commerce platforms.