IBL brand owners' plea admitted to High Court

With the Badminton Association of India intending to host the second edition of the Indian Badminton league (IBL) on its own, Sporty Solutionz Pvt. Limited has filed a plea to protect their intellectual property rights. The IBL brand owners and commercial partners created the IBL in 2013.

The Indian Badminton League has not had a second edition after 2013. The Badminton Association of India had recently announced its intent to conduct the second edition of the league on its own.

Indian Badminton League brand owners and commercial partners, Sporty Solutionz Pvt. Limited’s plea for protection of the IBL intellectual property rights has been admitted in the Delhi High Court. The case will come up for hearing on December 10, 2015. “We have pleaded to the Hon’ble Court that the IBL was created by our clients Sporty Solutionz under an agreement, under which the Intellectual Property rights for the league perpetually vested with our clients,” Sanjeev Kumar, Sporty Solutionz’s counsel, said.

He added that the Court had directed them to serve notices to all the concerned parties, including the Maharashtra Badminton Association, who were also the signatories to the tri-partite ‘Indian Badminton League and Commercial Rights Agreement'. The Badminton Association of India had recently announced to conduct the second edition of the league on its own.

Sporty Solutionz’ then moved the court for protection of their rights. The first edition of the IBL was conducted between August 14 and 31, 2013, in six Indian cities — Hyderabad, Delhi, Mumbai, Lucknow, Bengaluru and Pune.