The Court in the instant case was dealing with a suit filed by Living Media India Limited (plaintiff), parent company of India Today Group which owns Aaj Tak, stating that they had registered the mark ‘AAJ TAK’ which is a well-known and is used extensively on social media.
The plaintiffs said that they had created various accounts, profiles and handles on social media and content sharing platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram etc and their goodwill and reputation is not merely limited to the mark ‘AAJ TAK’, but also extends to various formative marks of ‘AAJ TAK’ and other marks ending with the word ‘TAK’.
The suit said that various known and unknown parties started using plaintiff’s trademark ‘Aaj Tak’ on online platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and many have also uploaded videos using infringing marks which are either derived from the mark ‘AAJ TAK’ or use the mark ‘TAK’ as suffix.
It added that such indiscriminate use of ‘Aaj Tak’ mark on online platforms severely impinged upon the their rights in their marks and therefore, anonymous websites on the social media platforms are violating their registered marks by using it wholly or in various derivative forms.
Source: Barandbench
