Google's Trademarks Policy regarding Ad-Text requires proactive party complaints for investigating keyword-based trademark infringement.

In brief

The question

1. Whether the directions in the previous Judgments were confined to the use of marks as keywords or extended to Ad-Text, Ad-Title, and URLs

The court held

The Court held that the Plaintiffs failed to establish "willful disobedience"

It also directed

The previous Judgments do not impose a proactive monitoring duty on Google; rather, the "grievance regarding the use of Subject Marks in Ad-Text, Ad-Title, or URL shall be governed by the Policy of Defendant Nos. 1 and 3" which requires the Plaintiffs to notify the Defendants of specific violations. The Application was dismissed, though the Court granted the Plaintiffs liberty to notify the Defendants of future infringements, which the Defendants must then investigate expeditiously

01Facts

The Plaintiffs sought a permanent injunction against the Defendants for trademark infringement and passing off regarding marks like "AGARWAL" and "DRS Logistics"

¶ 2

Earlier judgments dated 30.10.2021 and 10.08.2023 directed Google (D-1 and D-3) to investigate complaints where these marks were used as "keywords" to divert traffic

¶ 3-4

The Plaintiffs filed the present application under Order XXXIX Rule 2A of the CPC and Section 12 of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971, alleging that the Subject Marks continued to appear in third-party sponsored links, specifically in the "Ad-Text," "Ad-Title," and "URLs" even after notice was served

¶ 5-11

The Defendants argued that the court's directions were limited to "keywords" and required a specific complaint to trigger an investigation

¶ 12, 14.4

02Issues

i.1. Whether the directions in the previous Judgments were confined to the use of marks as keywords or extended to Ad-Text, Ad-Title, and URLs

¶ 15

ii.2. Whether the Defendants were under a mandatory obligation to proactively monitor and block such marks without a formal complaint from the Plaintiffs

¶ 15

iii.3. Whether the conduct of the Defendants amounted to "willful disobedience" under contempt jurisdiction

¶ 31

03Law Applied

The court applied Order XXXIX Rule 2A of the CPC and Section 12 of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971, regarding the violation of injunctions and willful disobedience

¶ 1

The court relied on the principle from Sudhir Vasudeva v. M. George Ravishekaran, holding that contempt jurisdiction cannot be used to reopen issues or expand directions beyond what is explicit or self-evident in the judgment

¶ 20

The court further applied the doctrine from Ram Kishan v. Tarun Bajaj, which states that if two interpretations of an order are possible, and the respondent follows one, it does not amount to "willful" contempt

¶ 32

Provisions in the judgment · 3 · Linked ones open on LawLens

Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 Section 151 Section 39

Contempt of Courts Act, 1971 Section 12

04Reasoning

The Court observed that the operative directions of the 2021 and 2023 Judgments specifically addressed the investigation of "keywords" based on complaints

¶ 16, 24

While the Defendants had made a statement in 2020 that their internal Policy does not permit trademarks in Ad-Text/Ad-Title, the Court noted this statement was linked to the "implementation of the Policy," which inherently requires a complaint-driven process rather than proactive monitoring

¶ 25, 29

The Court reasoned that since the Plaintiffs had narrowed their arguments during the original injunction hearing to "keywords," they could not now use contempt proceedings to enforce a broader proactive "blocking" obligation for Ad-Text and URLs that was not explicitly ordered in the final directions

¶ 22, 26, 28

Since the Defendants took down the specific URLs notified in the contempt application, their conduct was seen as compliant with the spirit of the court's directions

¶ 31