This is one of the first Landmark Judgements on IPR Law in India that is related to the protection of Intellectual Property Rights on the Internet. The Delhi High Court (HC), in this case, that is known till date as one of the Landmark Judgments on IPR Law related to cyber squatting held that the domain name of a product serves the same function as of a Trademark and hence, a domain name is entitled to equal protection.
In this case, the domain names of the plaintiff ‘Yahoo!’ and the domain name of the defendant ‘Yahoo India!’, were nearly phonetically similar and identical. In such a case, there was a very strong possibility that the users of the internet using the domain name of the plaintiff will get confused and deceived into believing that both the domain names of the defendant and plaintiff have some common source or connection.
The Delhi High Court also observed in this case that the disclaimer used by the defendants was not sufficient because the Internet nature is such that the use of a similar or identical domain name cannot be remedied by a disclaimer, and that also it did not matter that the domain name ‘yahoo’ is a dictionary word. The name ‘Yahoo’ had acquired distinctiveness and uniqueness when it was associated with the plaintiff. The Bombay High Court (HC), in the case of Rediff Communication vs. Cyber booth & Anr [2000 PTC 209], also observed that the importance and value of a domain name are as a corporate advantage to a company.
