Supreme Court dismisses MakeMyTrip’s plea against Google in Keyword trade mark infringement case

“A risk of trade mark infringement occurs when a registered trade mark is used as a keyword by a third party to link its website to promote its goods and services, which creates confusion in the minds of the consumers about the source of the product.”

MakeMyTrip

Supreme Court: In a special leave petition, filed by MakeMyTrip against the Delhi High Court judgment, wherein the Court set aside the interim order passed by a Single Judge that restrained Google from using MakeMyTrip’s registered trade marks as ‘keywords’ on the Google Ads Program, the three-Judge Bench of Dr. DY Chandrachud, CJI., J.B. Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, JJ. while dismissing the plea, orally remarked that those looking to book their tickets through ‘MakeMyTrip’ would not confuse it with ‘Booking.com’.

MakeMyTrip claimed that its registered trade marks ‘MakeMyTrip’ and ‘MMT’ were being used as keywords in the Google Ads Program for displaying the links/ads of its competitor ‘Booking.com’, which amounted to violation of its trade mark.

The Delhi High Court in the impugned Judgment has held that the use of trade marks as keywords in the absence of any confusion or unfair advantage would not infringe on the trade mark.

[MakeMyTrip (India) Private Limited v. Google LLC, 2024 SCC OnLine SC 266, Order dated 07-03-2024]


Advocates who appeared in this case :

For Petitioner(s): Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi, Senior Advocate Gaurav Pachnanda, Advocate Sameer Parekh, Advocate Sumit Goel, Advocate Mohit Goel, Advocate Ishan Nagar, Advocate Sidhant Goel, Advocate Deepankar Mishra, Advocate Abhishek Kotnala, Advocate Jyotika Jain, Advocate Manisha Arya, Advocate Apurba Pattanayak, Advocate Karmanya Dev Sharma, Advocate Avni Sharma

For Respondent(s): Senior Advocate Dr. Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Advocate Neel Mason, Advocate Vihan Dang, Advocate-On-Record Mrinal Kanwar, Advocate Ujjawal Bhargava AdvocateYash Johari, Advocate Priyansha Sharma, Advocate Pragya Jain, Advocate Aditya Mathur, Advocate Vaibhav, Senior Advocate Jayant K Mehta, Advocate Ankur Sangal, Advocate Pragya Mishra, Advocate Amrit Sharma, Senior Advocate Sandeep Sethi, Advocate Aditya Gupta, Advocate Raunaq Kamath, Advocate-On-Record Lzafeer Ahmad B. F, Advocate Sauhard Alung

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