Delhi High Court grants permanent injunction in favour of ANI in trademark suit against ANINEWSINDIA

The Delhi High Court recently granted a permanent injunction in favour of news agency Asian News International (ANI), restraining a website by the name of ANI News India from using the trademark ‘ANI’ [ANI Media Pvt. Ltd. V Vinay G David and Ors]..Justice Prathiba M Singh held that a perusal of the documents left no doubt that the defendants intended to misuse the plaintiff’s mark ‘ANI’ and since the services offered by the two are also identical, the latter would be severely affected.The Court noted that internet users could be deceived into believing that the defendants as well as their website and various platforms are connected with the plaintiff.“Defendant Nos.1 and 2 (the owners of the website) who are proceeded ex parte today are permanently injuncted from using the mark ‘ANI’ or any other derivatives including the logo form of ‘ANI’ as depicted in the plaint and in this order, either with or without the word ‘news’ and ‘India’ as ‘aninewsindia’, ‘aninews’ or in any other manner whatsoever including on the internet or any other social media platform including Instagram and Facebook, including the domain name containing the word ‘ANI’,” the Court ordered..Justice Singh was dealing with a suit filed by ANI seeking protection of the registered trademark ‘ANI,’ which was adopted by it in the year 1971. It was stated that the defendants launched a website by the name www.aninewsindia.com representing themselves as ‘ANINEWSINDIA’. The said website is a news-related website and ANI was not merely being used as a mark, but also as a domain name/website, the suit said.Though notices were issued to the defendants in December last year and in January and March this year, they chose not to appear..The Court was informed that Google has already de-indexed the defendant’s website. It was said that though the two Facebook pages relating to ‘www.aninewsindia.com’ and www.facebook.com/aninewsindia1’, have already been pulled down, personal Facebook page of the first defendant, who described himself as the Editor of ‘aninewsindia,’ is still operating. Justice Singh therefore directed that the said page be taken down within 36 hours..Advocates Sidhant Kumar and Manyaa Chandhok appeared for ANI.Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi, along with Advocates Tejas Karia, Ajit Warrier, Gauhar Mirza, Varun Pathak, Amee Rana, Thejesh R and Sheniza Farid appeared for Meta Platforms (Facebook).Advocates Neel Mason, Vihar Dang, Siddharth Vardhman and Devangiri Rai appeared for Google..[Read Order]