IP Case Law › Trade Marks › Info Edge (India) Pvt. Ltd. & Anr. v. Shailesh Gupta & Anr.
Relevant Acts and provisions
Provisions considered: Passing off; domain names
Brief facts
Info Edge, operator of the job portal naukri.com, sued the defendants for using a deceptively similar domain name for a competing online job service and hyperlinking it to their own website.
Issues before the Court
Whether the defendants' domain name was deceptively similar to the plaintiffs' domain name so as to justify a temporary injunction.
Court's findings
The Court held that the plaintiffs had made out a case for a temporary injunction: a domain name serves as a business identifier, and the defendants' deceptively similar name for identical online services was likely to divert users and cause confusion (para 31).
Decision
Temporary injunction granted restraining the defendants from using the domain name Naukri.com or any identical or deceptively similar mark, and from hyperlinking it to their website; observations tentative.
Key legal principle / ratio
A domain name used as a business identifier is protected against passing off; use of a deceptively similar domain name for identical online services may be restrained at the interim stage.
Important paragraph references
Para 31: injunction; para 32: observations tentative.
Important: This case note is a research summary only. It must be verified against the full judgment by a qualified lawyer, advocate or patent/trade mark attorney before any reliance. Do not rely on it as legal advice; Ragulika IP accepts no responsibility for its accuracy or for any action taken on it.
Keywords
Domain Names Naukri.com Online Services Passing Off Temporary Injunction
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