Sporta Technologies Pvt. Ltd. and Another v. Virat Saxena

FACTS OF THE CASE
 In the year 2020, a case was filed in by Sporta Technologies so as to seek a permanent
injunction against the defendants from the usage of “Dream11” in their domain name
or in any other way which may amount to infringement of the plaintiff’s trademarks.

 The defendant was using “Dream11” in their domain name www.dream11.bet which
was being used as a youtube channel comprising of match prediction videos. Their
website also contained the plaintiff’s “Dream11” trademarks.

CONTENTIONS OF THE PLAINTIFF
The plaintiffs put forth their contention that the adoption and usage of the “Dream11” marks
by the defendant as a part of their own trade and domain name is a clear attempt of trading on
the plaintiff’s goodwill and hence constituted infringement.

INTERIM RELIEF

 On 06.02.2020, the high court directed the domain name registrar to suspend
“dream11.bet” and the youtube channel for the same with an immediate affect.

The defendant failed to file its statement and its right to file the same was closed by
the Joint Registrar.

RULING“The use of the same or similar domain name may lead to diversion of users, which
could result from such users mistakenly accessing one domain name instead of
another. Therefore, a domain name may have all the characteristics of a trade mark
and could found an action for passing off”
The court also noted that the defendant did not file a written statement and has also
failed to appear in the suit.

The court then proceeded to rule in favour of the plaintiff.