Revisiting Section 15(2) in Cryogas vs. Inox India Ltd.

Case Name: Cryogas Equipment Pvt. Ltd. v. Inox India Ltd. and LNG Express India Pvt. Ltd.

Citation: 2025 SCC OnLine SC 483

Court: Supreme Court of India, Civil Appellate Jurisdiction

Coram / Judges: Justice Surya Kant and Justice Nongmeikapam Kotiswar Singh

Abstract

The Supreme Court’s decision in Cryogas v. Inox India Ltd. (Cryogas) revisits the uneasy overlap between copyright and design protection under Indian intellectual property law. The dispute arose from claims over engineering drawings and related materials used in manufacturing LNG semi-trailers, raising questions on the scope of Section 15(2) of the Copyright Act and the definition of “design” under the Designs Act. The judgment rejects a threshold dismissal of the suit and introduces a two-step framework centred on artistic works and functionality. This case comment examines the Court’s reasoning, particularly its treatment of technical drawings, functionality and “capable of registration”. It argues that while the ruling strengthens procedural safeguards for copyright holders, it leaves important doctrinal ambiguities unresolved.

Introduction

The overlap between copyright and design protection has long created uncertainty in Indian intellectual property law, particularly for industrial and engineering works that combine functionality with visual form. Cryogas v. Inox India Ltd. places this tension directly before the Supreme Court in the context of engineering drawings used for LNG semi-trailers. At the centre of the dispute was whether such drawings retained copyright protection after large-scale industrial application or whether they fell within the statutory bar under Section 15(2) of the Copyright Act. The judgment is significant not only for its interpretation of copyright–design overlap, but also for its insistence that these questions ordinarily require factual examination rather than summary rejection at the pleading stage.

Facts

Inox India Ltd., a manufacturer of LNG semi-trailers and cryogenic storage systems, filed a suit against Cryogas Equipment Pvt. Ltd., LNG Express India Pvt. Ltd. and others alleging infringement of copyright in its engineering drawings and related literary material used in developing LNG semi-trailers. Inox also sought reliefs for breach of confidence, permanent injunctions and damages. The defendants argued that the drawings qualified as “designs” under Section 2(d) of the Designs Act and, having been industrially applied more than fifty times, lost copyright protection under Section 15(2) of the Copyright Act. Accepting this objection, the Commercial Court rejected the plaint under Order VII Rule 11 CPC. Cryogas filed an SLP arguing that the High Court had erred in refusing to treat the suit as barred u/s-15(2) of Copyright Act.

Issues

The Supreme Court framed two primary issues:

1. Whether Inox’s engineering drawings constituted “designs” under Section 2(d) of the Designs Act and consequently lost copyright protection under Section 15(2) of the Copyright Act?

2. Whether such questions could justify rejection of the suit at the threshold under Order VII Rule 11 CPC?

Reasoning

The Court held that Section 15(2) of the Copyright Act applies only where the work in question is genuinely capable of registration as a “design” under the Designs Act. It emphasised that this determination requires examining whether the claimed features are primarily aesthetic or purely functional, and cannot be decided mechanically at the threshold stage. Surveying Indian and foreign precedents, the Court reaffirmed that artistic works do not automatically lose copyright protection merely because they are industrially applied. Since Inox’s claims involved engineering drawings, literary works and confidentiality obligations, the Court found that the dispute raised mixed questions of fact and law unsuitable for rejection under Order VII Rule 11 CPC.

The Court formulated a two-step test for applying Section 15(2).

1. First, courts must determine whether the work is an independent artistic work protected under copyright law or a design derived from that work and industrially applied to an article. Mere industrial application does not extinguish copyright in the original artistic work.

2. Second, if the work functions as a design, courts must assess whether its visual features are primarily aesthetic or dictated solely by functionality. Only designs with eye appeal independent of functional necessity fall within design protection.

Critique

The Court’s first prong offers limited guidance for distinguishing technical drawings from designs capable of registration under the Designs Act. While it restates the statutory framework, it does not clearly explain how engineering drawings should be classified in practice. Earlier decisions such as Photoquip treated technical drawings as independent artistic works rather than designs themselves. Although the Court referred to this line of cases, it stopped short of affirming whether industrial drawings, by themselves, fall outside Section 2(d). This leaves considerable uncertainty for future disputes involving engineering and manufacturing drawings.

The doctrinal tension arises in the Court’s adoption of a “dominant purpose” test which introduces unnecessary uncertainty into Indian design jurisprudence. Earlier decisions focused on a narrower inquiry: whether particular visual features were dictated solely by technical function and whether alternative configurations were possible. Cryogas, however, shifts the analysis toward identifying whether the article is predominantly functional or aesthetic. This broader formulation is difficult to apply consistently, especially to industrial products where functionality, ergonomics and visual appeal often overlap. The judgment also uses varying expressions such as “dominant purpose” and “primary characteristic” without clarifying their relationship with the statutory requirement of eye appeal under the Designs Act. As a result, courts may overemphasise functionality and deny protection even where distinct visual features capable of design protection exist within otherwise functional products.

While the Court reaffirmed that copyright ceases once an unregistered design capable of registration is industrially reproduced more than fifty times, it did little to clarify what “capable of being registered” actually means. The judgment does not explain whether capability requires a rigorous assessment of registrability standards such as novelty and originality or merely a broad resemblance to a design under Section 2(d). This ambiguity may encourage premature Section 15(2) objections even in cases involving technical drawings, confidential know-how or mixed intellectual property claims.

Impact of the decision

Cryogas makes it significantly harder to defeat copyright suits at the threshold stage in design–copyright overlap disputes. The judgment clarifies that questions involving functionality, design capability and industrial application usually require factual examination and cannot be resolved merely from the pleadings. This is likely to influence litigation strategy, with plaintiffs increasingly separating copyright, design and confidentiality claims to avoid blanket Section 15(2) objections. The ruling also pushes businesses to adopt clearer IP protection strategies, particularly through timely design registration and stronger confidentiality safeguards. At the same time, the judgment leaves unresolved questions on technical drawings and “capable of registration”, making further judicial clarification likely in future cases.

Conclusion

Cryogas is an important addition to Indian design jurisprudence because it recognises that disputes involving copyright, designs and industrial functionality cannot always be resolved through rigid threshold objections. The Court correctly resisted an expansive use of Section 15(2) to summarily defeat claims involving technical drawings and related materials. At the same time, the judgment leaves critical questions unresolved, particularly on the treatment of engineering drawings, the meaning of “capable of registration” and the role of the dominant purpose test in functionality analysis. As a result, while the decision strengthens procedural protection for copyright holders, it also opens fresh doctrinal uncertainties that future courts will inevitably have to address.

References

Cryogas Equipment Pvt. Ltd. v. Inox India Ltd. and LNG Express India Pvt. Ltd. 2025 SCC OnLine SC 483

Eashan Ghosh, “A Case Comment on Cryogas Equipment v. Inox India,” (2024) Indian Journal of Law and Technology