John Doe orders

John Doe order is an injunction sought against a person or persons whose identity is not known at the time of the issuance of the order.

John Doe order has its origin in England when orders were used to refer to unidentifiable defendant. Such orders are popular in the cases of intellectual property rights and enables the owner of an intellectual property (the plaintiff) to serve notice and take action against anyone, whose identity is unknown and found infringing the IP rights of the plaintiff.

Such orders do not specify any one defendant in particular and allow the owner to search the premises and recover evidence on infringement of its rights by unknown defendants (John Doe) (Januki Kumduri JB Rana v. Ashok Kumar 2017 SCC).