Burger King Corporation, (“Plaintiff”), filed a suit before the Delhi High Court against the defendants for registering misleading domain names similar to the Plaintiff’s BURGER KING mark.
It was the case of the Plaintiff that it has been continuously and extensively using the mark BURGER KING since 1954 worldwide, and in India since 2014. The Plaintiff averted that it had over 250 restaurants in India and also uses the domain names that incorporate the BURGER KING mark, such as BURGERKING.COM, BURGERKING.IN and BURGERKINGINDIA.IN.
The Plaintiff claimed that in March 2021, it came to know about the existence of the website located at www.burgerkingfranchises.in and that the defendant was duping unsuspecting members of the public into believing that he was a representative of the Plaintiff and inviting the general public to apply for the Plaintiff’s franchise opportunities.
The court held that the Plaintiff had made out a prima facie case and that the balance of convenience also lay in favour of the Plaintiff and granted an ad-interim injunction against the defendant. The court restrained the defendant from offering any services and using or registering corporate or domain names bearing the mark BURGER KING. The court also ordered freezing of the Defendant’s bank account and blocking of the fraudulent website.
Burger King Corporation v Swapnil Patil & Ors., Delhi High Court decision dt. 10.5.2022 in CS (COMM) 303/2022.