Google appeals against ruling on Hindware trademark

NEW DELHI: Tech giant Google on Friday moved the Delhi High Court against an order holding it guilty of trademark infringement over the use of sanitaryware brand Hindware’s mark as keywords for its AdWords programme.

A benc h of justices V Kameswar Rao and Manmeet P S Arora issued notice to Hindware on Google’s appeal against a single ju dge’s May 22 decision, which also directed the platform to pay Rs 30 lakh as damages, and listed the matter for hearing on July 24.

Refusi ng to interfere with the judgement at this stage, the bench said, “We will have it on July 24 for final disposal.”

Senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi appeared for th e appellant and sought interim stay of the direction to pay damages.

He argued that the single judge’ s judgement was not in line with the earlier decisions and globally acceptable practices in the field.

On May 22, the single judge had directed Google to pay Rs 30 lakh as damages to Hindware for using its trademark as keywords for its AdWords Programme.

While dealing with two lawsuits by Hindware Ltd, the single judge had held that the use of trademarks as keywords amounted to unfair advantage under the Tradem arks Act and restrain ed Google LLC and Google India from using ‘Hindw are’ or ‘Hindware Sanita ryware’, ‘Hindware Sanitar’ or ‘Hindware Sanitaryware India’ as part of advert ising keywords for its platform.