The High Court of Delhi in one of its recent orders has stated that counterfeiting of competitors metatags to promote one’s own business is violative of the rights of the trade mark owner and is subject to infringement.
The order was passed by the single judge bench of Justice Pratibha M. Singh
The present suit was filed by Head Digital Works Pvt. Ltd. demanding to seek permanent injunction on the use of metatags which are its registered trademarks. The Plaintiff seeks to protect its marks ‘Ace2three’ and ‘A23’ which are registered as trademarks under various classes since 2006 and 2020 respectively.
Plaintiff deals in maintaining and deployment of online gaming softwares via internet and mobile applications and claim to represent India’s first ever online rummy platform. It was aggrieved by the illegal use of it’s marks/metatags by the defendants Tictok Skill Games Pvt Ltd. as they used the same marks to promote their gaming software and mobile application on the apple based app store which results in appearance of defendants application first before the plaintiff’s application with every user search.
It was contended that when any user searches for ‘A23’ or ‘Ace2three’ on the App Store the first result in the advertisement section of the search result is that of the Defendant’s app ‘WinZO Games’.
The ld. Counsel for plaintiffs relied on the recent order passed by Delhi HC court in case of MakeMyTrip India Private Limited v. Booking.com B.V. under which it was observed that the use of the mark ‘MakeMyTrip’ as a keyword through Google Ads Program by one of its major competitors, Booking.com is infringement in nature.
The Court referred to the case of Make my trip v. booking.com and DRS logistics v. Google and observed that the invisible use of the Plaintiff’s mark as an ‘adword’ or‘keyword’ on any online platforms by the Defendant would be violative of the Plaintiff’s rights in the marks. The Court directed that the defendants shall not use plaintiff’s metatags on any of the online search engines or application-based search platforms including Apple Application Store etc.
Court ordered Parties to appear before the Mediation Centre either virtually or physically, subject to the convenience of all concerned.
CASE TITILE. : HEAD DIGITAL WORKS PRIVATE LIMITED V. TICTOK SKILL GAMES PVT LTD
CASE DETAILS : CS(COMM) 301/2022 & I.As. 7251-53/2022
CORAM. : JUSTICE PRATHIBA M. SINGH
Read Order @LatestLaws.com:
Share this Document :Picture Source :
