Delhi HC awards 10 lakh damages to Google for misuse of its trademark

“In view of the above damages of INR 10,00,000/- are awarded in favour of plaintiff (Google LLC), payable jointly and severally by defendants No. 1, 2 and 3 to plaintiff,” the court directed.

The court ordered the Department of Telecommunications 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” mark.

The high court was hearing Google LLC’s lawsuit for a permanent injunction against the defendants Google Enterprises Private Limited, E-Kutir Technology & Extension Management (P) Ltd and its director Chander Shekhar, who had approached the High Court after it came across certain brochures and news articles in 2011 regarding a collaboration between Google India and the defendants for granting desk jobs.

Google told the court that in 2011, it learnt about a ”concocted collaboration” had been announced between its ”supposed India entity” and Tata Communications for a joint venture in the name of E-Kutir Technology & Extension Management (P) Ltd, a Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) unit.

Google said that the defendants had “misrepresented the public into believing” that depositing certain amounts of money in Google Enterprises Pvt Ltd’s bank account would secure them a desk job.

It was argued 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 websites.

The court perused the screenshots of the defendants website and observed that defendants were “unauthorisedly” using Google’s marks on its websites.

The court further observed that Google’s trademark had been declared a well-known mark and had a worldwide reputation on account of extensive use. The high court also said that none of the defendants controverted the plaintiff’s claims and no evidence has been produced to refute the allegations.

The court observed that the marks displayed on defendants’ websites were entirely identical to the Google LLC’s mark and it was clear that the defendants ”have been acting in collusion” and ”evidently want to freeride on plaintiff’s appeal in the global/ Indian market for unlawful monetary gain”.

The court further observed that the defendants “deliberately misrepresented to the trade and public that they are carrying out their business in partnership/ affiliation” with Google which was “certainly not authorised or legitimate”.