SC Dismisses MakeMyTrip’s Trademark Claim Against Google

SUMMARY

The Supreme Court dismissed MakeMyTrip's plea that its registered trademark was being infringed by Booking.com through the tech giant's Google Ads program

The traveltech major was challenging the December Delhi High Court dismissal for its injunction plea on Google and Booking.com to use registered trademarks as ‘keywords’ on the Google Ads Programme

The bench, compromising of the Chief Justice of India didn’t see any possibility of confusion for a user who would want to use MMT to go on Booking.com because their ad appears first

The Supreme Court on Thursday (March 7) refused to grant relief to travel tech major MakeMyTrip in its claim against Google, alleging infringement of trademark via the Google Ads programme.

MakeMyTrip alleged that its trademarks were being used as keywords in the Google Ads Program for displaying the sponsored links of its rival Booking.com.

A bench led by the Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud dismissed the plea, saying that Booking.com is not encroaching on MakeMyTrip’s trademark.

“There is no possibility of any confusion. If you want to work on MakeMyTrip, then why will you log into Booking.com? This is not an issue which is res integra. They are not using your mark as well…” Bar and Bench reported, quoting CJI’s response to the appeal.

In December last year, MakeMyTrip moved a division bench of Delhi High Court, seeking an injunction on Google and Booking.com to use registered trademarks as ‘keywords’ on the Google Ads Programme.

Following that, the division bench of Delhi High Court removed MakeMyTrip’s injunction on Google and Booking.com to use registered trademarks as ‘keywords’ on the Google Ads Programme.

It is pertinent to note that the travel tech major’s competitor, Booking.com, had purchased the keyword ‘MakeMyTrip’ on the Google Ads Program with the highest bid back in 2019.

Subsequently, MMT issued a notice to Booking.com in 2019 and followed that up with another cease-and-desist notice in 2020.

When both of its initial notices failed, the startup filed a copyright infringement case against Booking.com and Google, alleging that the former had been illegally bidding on the trademarks associated with MakeMyTrip in Google Ads, which resulted in traffic and business being diverted to Booking.com from MakeMyTrip.

The case resulted in an interim relief for MMT with a single-judge bench of Justice Prathibha M. Singh deemed the use of its trademark and its variations on Google Ads a passing off and ordered the search engine major to stop offering it as a keyword for bidding in April 2022.

This injunction decision was later removed by the two judge bench of Delhi High Court in December last year. The lawyers appearing for MMT challenged the correctness of the order passed by the HC bench.

With the apex court’s dismissal of MMT’s case, the five year long copyright infringement tussle between the two parties awaits further clarification. Lawyers appearing for MMT sought clarification on whether the order will impact the motion hearing before a single judge, to which the CJI said the bench will clarify.