Software Piracy - Indian Court Orders for Damages

The recent decision of Delhi High Court in the case – Microsoft Corporation vs. Yogesh Papat & Anr., pertaining to "Piracy of Software", has once again established the resolve of the Indian Judiciary to take up Intellectual Property matters upfront. IP theft, which till recently was perceived as a petty white-collar crime owing to its economic milieu, finally seems to have come out of the dark shadows of archetypal criminal offences, which had prejudiced the mindset of Indian judicial and enforcement agencies (the prevalent notion being that the criminal offences are much more felonious and aberrant as compared to their IP counterparts, an argument to which some people still might subscribe).