Plea on IBL's IPR to be heard on December 10

The inaugural Indian Badminton League's (IBL) commercial partners Sporty Solutionz Pvt. Limited's (SSPL) plea for protection of the tournament's Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) will be heard by the Delhi High Court on December 10.

SSPL had filed the plea on October 17 but made the news public by sending a statement right when the Badminton Association of India (BAI) launched the second season of IBL here on October 29.

"We have pleaded to the Honourable court that the IBL was created by our clients Sporty Solutionz under an agreement, under which the IPR for the league perpetually vested with our clients," counsel for Sporty Solutionz, Sanjeev Kumar, said on Tuesday.

"The honourable court after hearing the arguments, had directed us 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 BAI has recently announced that they will conduct the second edition of IBL in January 2016 on their own.

"Thereafter, Sporty Solutionz had pleaded in the Honourable High Court of Delhi to protect their rights. The court while admitting the plea has asked the petitioner to serve notices to all concerned parties in this case," said an SSPL statement.

The first edition of the IBL was conducted in August 2013 in six Indian cities - Hyderabad, New Delhi, Mumbai, Lucknow, Bengaluru and Pune. The inaugural edition was won by Hyderabad Hotshots.

This is the second such plea that has been filed by the SSPL after the BAI terminated their IBL contract on April 21. The first petition, a copy of which is in possession of IANS, was dismissed by the high court on May 29.

"They could not furnish the bank guarantees required for hosting the event which is why we had to terminate their contract," BAI president Akhilesh Das Gupta had said.