Delhi HC Awards Rs 10 Lakhs In Favor Of Google After Consultancy Firm Google Enterprises Is Found Guilty Of Trademark Infringement
The Delhi High Court has awarded Rs. 10 Lakhs damages to Google LLC after a consultancy firm named Google Enterprises deliberately misrepresented to the trade and public that they are carrying out their business in partnership/ affiliation with Google LLC, which was not authorised.
“Given the tremendous goodwill and worldwide reputation of Plaintiff’s mark, Defendants use of the “GOOGLE” mark manifests bad faith with no justification. Such misrepresentation has also already led to confusion and deception among the public at large. Defendants, if not permanently restrained, are likely to cause further injury to the Plaintiff, given that their activities are severely harming the reputation and diluting the goodwill of Plaintiff’s marks.”, the bench of Justice Sanjeev Narula observed.
Advocate Tanya Varma appeared for Plaintiff-Google LLC.
The Court noted that the Defendants misrepresented to the public that they were partners of Plaintiff/ Plaintiff’s India entity viz. “Google India” based on which Defendant No. 2 announced a fictitious KPO unit.
“The 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 and be employed with an entity supposedly associated with Plaintiff…”, the Court noted.
On perusal of the documents and amended plaint the Court noted that the Defendants were dishonestly using Google’s mark.
“Defendants’ evidently want to free-ride on Plaintiff’s appeal in the global/ Indian market for unlawful monetary gain.”, the Court observed.
The Court noted that, if not permanently restrained, Defendants are likely to cause further injury to the Plaintiff.
Thus the Court held “In view of the above, damages of INR 10,00,000/- are awarded in favour of Plaintiff, payable jointly and severally by Defendants No. 1, 2 and 3 to Plaintiff.”
The Court directed the Defendants to hand over all printed matter, including stationery, brochures, bearing the mark/name “GOOGLE” to the authorized representative of the Plaintiff representative(s) for the purpose of destruction.
Cause Title- Google LLC v. Google Enterprises Pvt Tld & Ors (Neutral Citation No-2023:DHC:2294)
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