The Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed a plea by online travel booking portal MakeMyTrip which had alleged that its trademark was being infringed by Booking.com through Google Ads program.
The online travel booking portal moved the Supreme Court arguing that because of the Google Ads program, search results for MakeMyTrip would throw up sponsored links to Booking.com, a direct competitor.
Nonetheless, a bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud, Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Misra expressed reservations over whether any case for trademark infringement could be made out since there was no scope of confusion between the services offered by MakeMyTrip and Booking.com.
The Chief Justice stated that there is no possibility of any confusion. He questioned that if anyone wants to work on MakeMyTrip, then why will they log into Booking.com. He added that this is not an issue which is res integra. Dismissing the plea, the CJI DY Chandrachud noted that Booking.com and…