MUMBAI: 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 next come up for hearing on December 10, 2015.

SSPL, who had invested heavily to deliver a highly successful season 1 and create the brand IBL, had pleaded in the Hon’ble court for protection of their Intellectual Property rights.

“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. The Hon’ble 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’,” says the Sporty Solutionz’s counsel, Sanjeev Kumar.

The Badminton Association of India had recently announced to conduct the second edition of the league at its own. Thereafter, Sporty Solutionz’ had pleaded in the Hon’ble 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.

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. The inaugural edition of the league was won by PVP Hyderabad. Thereafter, the league was not allowed to happen by the BAI in 2014 and 2015.