The plaintiff, registered proprietor of word mark and logos BOOKMYSHOW, was seeking permanent injunction against defendant from using in any manner mark BOOKMYSPORTS, of using prefix BOOKMY. It was the claim of plaintiff that the prefix BOOKMY is an essential part of plaintiff’s registered trademark as it has acquired distinctiveness over a period of time that is exclusively associated with the plaintiff.
The Defendant, a corporate entity providing an online platform for booking sports facilities through its website www.bookmysports.com claimed that its trademark BOOKMYSPORTS and domain activity was dissimilar to the plaintiff’s trademark. The Defendant further claimed that the prefix BOOKMY is not invented but a descriptive phrase and is used in the domain name by several pages, before and subsequent to plaintiff’s website.
The Delhi High Court in the case of Bigtree Entertainment v. Brain Seed Sportainment, observed that plaintiff had not put on record any evidence to show that BOOKMY has acquired secondary meaning and that the public associate the word only with the plaintiff’s domain name BOOKMYSHOW. Noting that other companies also operate with same domain prefix, the Court held that the word BOOKMY was descriptive and rejected the application seeking permanent injunction to restrain defendant from using mark ‘BOOKMYSPORTS’, or using prefix ‘BOOKMY’.