Authored By – Isha
Asian News International (‘ANI’), an Indian News Agency, owns the trademarks “ANI” (‘ANI trademarks’) and the domain names www.aniin.com and www.aninews.in. Another person registered the domain name domain name www.aninewsindia.com and started using the trademarks . ANI approached the Delhi High Court for relief.
ANI claimed that they were using the ANI Trademarks since 1971. ANI claimed that the services provided by the infringers were identical to the services provided by ANI and this was causing deception in the minds of the viewers. ANI and that the infringers had obtained the domain name in bad faith with an intention to ride upon their hard earned reputation and goodwill. Google LLC was also made party to the suit for allowing listing of the infringing domain on their search engine.
When the suit came up for trial, the Court observed that ANI was the first, original and honest adopter of the ANI Trademarks, the infringer had adopted the domain name in bad faith. Hence, the Court was pleased to grant an interim injunction in favour of ANI. The Court also directed the domain name registrar to block the impugned domain name www.aninewsindia.com similarly directed Google LLC to de-index, take-down, block and disable access to the impugned domain name from its search engine.