Supreme Court Dismisses MakeMyTrip's Trademark Infringement Suit Against Google

The Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed MakeMyTrip's appeal alleging an infringement of its trademark by Google on the tech major's ads programme.

MakeMyTrip Pvt. had sought an injunction against Google for using its trademark 'MakeMyTrip' in displaying and promoting the business of its rival counterpart Booking.com.

MakeMyTrip’s lawyers argued before the court that when the keyword ‘MakeMytrip’ is typed in the Google search bar, Booking.com’s name props up as the primary result, and MakeMyTrip comes after that.

It was contended that MakeMyTrip's registered trademark is being sold to Booking.com as a part of Google's advertisement programme, which gives their direct competitor a primacy of place on Google.

Appearing for Google, senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi argued that Google auctions millions of ads in this way.

Citing the Delhi High Court ruling, Singhvi said that the use of a trademark as a keyword does not constitute an infringement. There is nothing illegal on Google’s part to use keywords for its advertising programme, he said

When the keyword 'MakeMyTrip' is entered on Google search, Booking.com ends up occupying the secondary spot seven times out of 10, Singhvi said. A lot of ads appear on a Google prompt, and sometimes a company gets the primary spot and sometimes it doesn’t.

The top court ruled that Booking.com is not using the trademark in this instance and that customers who want to book tickets on MakeMyTrip won't confuse it with Booking.com.

The court observed that this is not a case for trademark infringement as Booking.com is not passing off their product as MakeMyTrip’s product.

There is no case for deception at all, the court remarked.

In December last year, the Delhi High Court had set aside an order that restrained online travel firms from using the 'MakeMyTrip' keyword when participating in the Google Ads programme.

When people search for things on Google, they see two types of results: organic and sponsored results. Sponsored results are shown because advertisers participate in the Google Ads programme.

In the sponsored results cateogry, advertisers bid for specific keywords. For example, if someone searches for 'travel', travel-related companies might bid for that keyword to display their ads. The bid is the amount of money an advertiser is willing to pay when a user clicks on their ad. Google uses a special system to select which sponsored results to display, and these results are labelled with the word 'Ad.'

Booking.com was bidding on and using MakeMyTrip's registered brand name as a keyword in its ads. This is a violation of its trademark, according to MakeMyTrip.