Keyword Advertising and Trademark Infringement: MakeMyTrip India Pvt. Ltd. v. Booking.com B.V. & Ors.
Background By order dated April 27, 2022, Justice Pratibha M. Singh of the Delhi High Court granted an interim injunction in favor of MakeMyTrip India Private Limited ("MMT") in its suit against Booking.com B.V. and others. MMT had sued to protect its registered trademarks "MakeMyTrip" and its variants, which Booking.com was using as keywords on Google's Ads Program to trigger its own advertisements in Google search results. MMT's grievance was that a search for "MakeMyTrip" frequently displayed, as the very first result in the advertisement category, a sponsored listing for Booking.com — one of MMT's principal competitors. MMT argued that such use of its registered mark by a direct competitor amounted to trademark infringement. Booking.com's Defense Booking.com resisted the injunction on several grounds: It relied on the European Commission's decision in Case AT.40428 — Guess , dated December 17, 2018 (the " Guess decision"...