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2025 WIPO IP Judges Forum Informal Case Summary - Court of First Instance of Amman, Jordan [2025]: Case No. 2020/6376

This is an informal case summary prepared for the purposes of facilitating exchange during the 2025 WIPO IP Judges Forum.

 

Session 7: Calculation of Damages in Civil Proceedings

 

Court of First Instance of Amman, Jordan [2025]: Case No. 2020/6376

 

Date of judgment: June 30, 2025

Issuing authority: Court of First Instance of Amman

Level of the issuing authority: First Instance

Type of procedure: Judicial (Civil)

Subject matter: Copyright and Related Rights

Plaintiff: Q.I.T. Company

Defendant: T. Al. for Business and Information Technology Establishment and its owner

Keywords: Unfair competition, compensation, moral damages, legal entities

 

Basic facts: The plaintiff is a company specializing in providing and marketing information technology and databases, particularly legal legislation and court rulings, through its website www.qistas.com, which operates across the Arab world and the Middle East. The defendants are an individual enterprise and its owner, who had previously worked for the plaintiff for eight years before leaving in 2018 and offering similar technical services through https://qararak.wordpress.com and https://qarark.com.

 

The Jordanian Bar Association, the registered owner of https://qarark.com since 2020, was not initially sued. Instead, the programming company was named as a defendant. The Bar Association intervened in the lawsuit (case no. 423/T/2023), asserting its ownership of qarark.com and explaining that it had contracted with the defendants in 2018 to create and develop this program based on its database, which has existed since 1950.

 

Although Qistas (the plaintiff) and the Bar Association (owner of Qarark) settled through judicial mediation regarding ownership issues, the case proceeded against the defendants.

 

Held: The Court ordered the defendants to pay the plaintiff JOD 160,134 for damages: JOD 20,000 for moral damages and JOD 140,134 for material damages. The claim for lost profits was rejected for lack of supporting evidence, since material damages cover both actual losses and lost profits. The defendants were also ordered to pay fees, expenses, attorney’s fees, and statutory interest.

 

Relevant holdings in relation to Calculation of Damages in Civil Proceedings: The Court dismissed the defendants’ argument that the plaintiff had infringed the Qarark program owned by the Bar Association. This was based on a settlement agreement between Qistas and the Bar Association, in which Qistas acknowledged the Bar Association’s ownership rights over qarark.com and undertook not to contest such ownership. The plaintiff also agreed not to request that the Bar Association stop using Qarark on the grounds of alleged infringement of Qistas.

 

Relevant legislation: The Unfair Competition and Trade Secrets Law & Law No. 15 of 2000; The Civil Code No. 43 of 1976; the Civil Procedure Law No. 24 of 1988; and the Copyright and Related Rights Law No. 22 of 1992.