Madras High Court rules in favour of Bharat Matrimony

Madras High Court rules in favour of Bharat Matrimony

Bharat Matrimony wins trademark infringement case against Silicon Valley Infomedia

The Madras High Court has ruled in favour of Bharat Matrimony (bharatmatrimony.com), an online matrimony service, in a trademark infringement suit filed against Silicon Valley Infomedia Private Limited.

The plaintiff (Bharat Matrimony) had informed the Court that the defendant (SVI) had deceptively been using the former's trademark to redirect internet traffic to its website (www.siliconinfo.com). It complained that SVI had used a similar style and trademark to mislead the potential clients to register on its website instead of the original one.

While delivering the judgment, Justice Dr G Jayachandran said that SVI had been taking unfair advantage of the goodwill that Bharat Matrimony enjoyed in the field of establishing marriage alliances online.

The Court said that SVI had wrongfully adopted the domain name www.bharatmatrimony.org and despite being given the opportunity, no justification was forthcoming from its side.

The Court directed SVI to submit all materials pertaining to matrimonial alliances to Bharat Matrimony. However, it did not award any damages to the plaintiff due to a lack of evidence that it had profited from the trademark use.

Founded by Murugavel Janakiraman, Bharat Matrimony has been in the business since 1997 and its trademark was registered in 2006.

Interestingly, Janakiraman had met his wife through his own website. Apart from India, the company has offices in Dubai, Sri Lanka, the United States and Malaysia.