Delhi High Court restrains rogue websites from using Havells trademark

The Delhi High Court recently passed an ex-parte injunction restraining rogue websites from using the registered trademark of electrical company Havells (Havells India Ltd & Anr v. Ashok Kumar/John Doe & Ors)..Justice Navin Chawla passed a John Doe/Ashok Kumar order injuncting several unknown parties after finding that irreparable loss will be caused to Havells if an injunction is not passed in its favour.The defendants were restricted from using in any manner, directly or indirectly, Havells' registered trademarks of HAVELLS, LLOYD and/ or any other identical or deceptively similar mark in respect to the contentious domain names..The Court also directed the Department of Technology (DoT) and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) to issue directions to all Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to block the rogue websites infringing Havells' exclusive rights, unless the authorities are of the opinion that such other websites do not infringe the intellectual property rights of Havells.Additionally, the Court directed a host of defendants such GoDaddy.com, Domain by Proxy, Private Registry Authority and the National Internet Exchange of India, among others, to disclose to Havells' counsel the details of the persons who had registered the above-mentioned domains along with their complete contact details and to file an affidavit before the Court disclosing the same.The Court also added that the email addresses reflected on the rogue websites like 'support@havellsfranchisee.com' and 'support@havellsfranchise.com', shall also be de-activated..Upon the disclosure of the names of the registrants of the domain names, the Court also permitted Havells to implead them as defendants in the present suit. "In case the Plaintiff comes across any other domain names or websites with the mark ‘HAVELLS’ and ‘LLOYD’, they are permitted to approach the Court with an application for appropriate relief, including seeking extension of the present injunction to the said domain names or websites as well," the Court clarified.The Court also directed Google to restrain from making available the mark 'HAVELLS' and/or 'LLOYD' or any other deceptively similar variation of it in its Google Ads Programme.Finally, the Court asked banks such as UCO, IDBI and Canara to immediately freeze the bank accounts and also provide complete disclosure of the KYC details of the accounts on affidavit in a sealed cover.Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea Ltd. were also asked to provide a complete disclosure of the KYC details in a sealed cover and deactivate the numbers used by the infringers..In its suit, Havells claimed that it was aggrieved by various rogue websites or domain names being registered using its trademark, such as, 'havellsfranchisee.com', 'havellsfranchise.com', 'havellsfranchise.co.in', 'havellsdealership.com','havells-distributorship.live', 'havellsdealershipapply.in' and 'franchiseinfo.in'. These were also advertised on Google AdWords.The company also submitted that these websites were registered only to mislead the general consumers and public and, in fact, resulted in fraudulent activities being conducted, causing loss to the general public and unwary customers..Advocates Sudeep Chatterjee, Kratraj Sadana and Shifa Nagar appeared for Havells..Read order: