Parliament Jokes:

Intellectual property rights belong to director - Judge

Sandasen Marasinghe

Colombo Commercial High Court Judge K.T. Chithrasiri yesterday in a judgement observed that the intellectual property rights of the Sinhala film Parliament Jokes belonged to its director and actor Ranjan Ramanayake.

The Court issued the judgement following co-director R. M. L. Ranjith Kaluarachchi filed an application pleading to nullify the decision taken by the Chief Director of Intellectual Property Dr. D. M. Karunaratne on May 10, 2006 to register the film Parliament Jokes as an intellectual property of Ramanayake.

Ramanayake stated before Court that Kaluarachchi was a hired co-director for the film. Kaluarachchi was also an actor in the film and was paid for it. He said the expenditure of the entire film was spent by him and his family members and so the rights of the intellectual property should be enjoyed by him. The Court ordered Kaluarachchi to handover the documents pertaining to the film to its producer.