The Delhi High Court has restrained Booking.com and Google from using the mark 'MakeMyTrip' as a keyword on the search engine's Ads Program.
The high court said that allowing competitors and Google to encash upon the reputation of another entity's mark for their monetary advantage is not permissible.
Justice Prathiba M Singh, in her interim order passed on a lawsuit by MakeMyTrip (plaintiff), prima facie opined that the use of the 'MakeMyTrip' mark on the Google Ads Program as a keyword by its competitor would amount to trademark infringement and be detrimental to the plaintiff's monetary interest and brand equity.
The judge clarified that the injunction shall be restricted to the territory of India and stated that the plaintiff can "surely use its trademark as a keyword on the Google Ads Program if it wishes to promote itself on the search engine".
The plaintiff submitted before the court that when a search is carried out for 'MakeMyTrip' in the Google search bar, quite often the first advertisement which is displayed in the search results in the advertisement category is that of Booking.com which is one of its major competitors.
"This Court is prima facie of the opinion that the use of Plaintiff's registered mark 'MakeMyTrip' on the Google Ads Program as a keyword would amount to trademark infringement. The same would be detrimental to the Plaintiff's monetary interest as also to the brand equity of the Plaintiff's mark. To allow competitors such as HYPERLINK "http://www.booking.com"www.booking.com and even Google to encash upon the reputation of the Plaintiff's mark for their monetary advantage is not permissible in the opinion of the Court," said the court in its order dated April 27.
"Under these circumstances, the Defendants (Booking.com and Google) are restrained from using the mark 'MakeMyTrip' together/ in conjunction, with or without spaces for the purpose of using it as a keyword on the Google Ads Program till the next date of hearing. However, this shall not prevent the Defendants from using words 'make', 'my', 'trip' not conjunctively on a standalone basis in a descriptive or generic sense on the Google Ads Program," the court ordered.
The court issued summons to the defendants on the lawsuit which claimed that its marks were being used by Booking.com BV as keywords on the Google Ads Program, and sought their response and listed the case for further hearing on July 27.
The court granted one week to the defendants to comply with the order.
Booking.com opposed the grant of interim relief to the plaintiff on several grounds including that the words 'make', 'my', and 'trip' can be used in a generic and descriptive fashion, which ought not to be injuncted.
Google also told the court that the use of the trademark as a keyword is not an infringement of the trademark and no interim injunction ought to be granted.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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