E-Commerce Platforms Must Protect Intellectual Property Rights Of Sellers, Can't Become Safe Haven For Infringers: Delhi High Court

The Delhi High Court has observed that an e-commerce platform cannot become haven for infringers and it must protect the intellectual property rights of others. Where easy money is visible, the conscience at times takes a nap.” The court made the observations while restraining e-commerce platform Indiamart from providing the registered trade marks of PUMA in respect of the goods as search options in its drop down menu presented to prospective sellers at the time of their registration on the platform. “Even if one were, therefore, to regard “use of a mark” as necessitating visual representation of the mark, the providing, by IIL, of “Puma” as one of the drop down menus available to the seller at the time of registration, on the Indiamart platform would constitute “use” within the meaning of Section 2 and 2 of the Trade Marks Act,” the court said. “If it has not made reasonable efforts in that direction, and counterfeiters register themselves on the Indiamart platform as sellers of genuine PUMA products by choosing the “Puma” option from the drop down menu, IIL cannot shrug away its participatory role in the exercise of counterfeiting and consequent infringement of the plaintiff's registered trade mark,” the court said.