Delhi HC awards Rs 10 lakh damages to Google in trademark lawsuit

The Delhi High Court has directed consultancy firm Google Enterprises Pvt Ltd and its associated entities to pays Rs 10 lakh as damages to techgiant Google LLC for misusing its trademarkRuling in favour of Google LLC on its lawsuit to permanently restrain the defendants from infringing its trademark Justice Sanjeev Narula observed that the defendants used the Google mark without due authorisation and indulged in deception and trickery as they misrepresented to the public that they were associated with Google India and had the modus operandi to dupe themThe court added that the plaintiff company has valid and subsisting registrations for the Google mark and its variations and this has been declared a wellknown mark with worldwide reputation on account of its extensive use and numerousGoogle LLC is surely entitled to statutory protection and grant of injunction for infringement and besides the damages of Rs 10 lakh it is also entitled to actual costs in terms of the Commercial Courts Act and Delhi High Court Original Side Rules 2018 read with IPD Rules on the basis of bill of costs the court thus opinedThe present suit is accordingly decreed in favour of the plaintiff damages of INR 1000000 are awarded in favour of plaintiff payable jointly and severally by defendants No 1 2 and 3 to plaintiff the court ordered in a decision passed last monthThe court also directed DoT to issue directions to all internet service providers and telecom service providers to block access to the website hosted on a domain name in violation of the Google markThe plaintiff told the court that in 2011 it learnt that a concocted collaboration had been announced between its supposed India entity and Tata Communications for a joint venture in the name of the defendant no 2 EKutir Technology amp Extension Management P Ltd a Knowledge Process Outsourcing KPO unitAlso Read Calcutta HC directs West Bengal govt to file report on fresh Rishra violenceIt argued said that all the defendants were acting in collusion with each other in furtherance of their unlawful activities and misrepresented their association with the plaintiff by misusing the Google trademark on their websitesThe court said none of the defendants controverted the plaintiffs claims and no evidence has been produced to refute the allegationsThe modus operandi of Defendants was to dupe members of the public into believing they would get a desk job on depositing money with Defendant No 1 Google Enterprises and be employed with an entity supposedly associated with plaintiff observed the courtSuch was the level of deception and trickery that individuals reached out to Plaintiff inquiring on their association with the defendants on account of the publicity of said KPO unit and impugned websites of defendants it addedThe court stated that the marks displayed on defendants websites were entirely identical to the plaintiffs mark and it was is clear that the defendants have been acting in collusion and evidently want to freeride on plaintiffs appeal in the global Indian market for unlawful monetary gainThus they deliberately misrepresented to the trade and public that they are carrying out their business in partnership affiliation with plaintiff which was certainly not authorised or legitimate it addedConsidering the nature of unlawful use of the mark and the misrepresentation by defendants court said the plaintiff is entitled to nominal damagesThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever