Bombinate Technologies Pvt. Ltd. v. KOO Coin and Ors.

Recently, the Delhi High Court granted an ex-parte ad interim injunction in favour of Bombinate Technologies Pvt. Ltd. against the unauthorized use of its KOO and bird device marks. The Plaintiff owns the mobile applications, Vokal India, and Koo India, which are social media and micro-blogging platforms. As per the Plaintiff, it adopted the marks KOO and bird device in 2019. The Plaintiff has also launched a reward program called ‘KOO COIN’, which rewards users with redeemable digital coins.

The Plaintiff submitted that several websites and mobile applications for block chain based marketplaces and micro-blogging platforms, namely, www.koo.money, www.minekoo.com, KOO NETWORK and KOO TWEET SOCIAL MEDIA were launched by the defendants, namely, Koo Coin, Koo Network and Indian Creatives Koo Tweet Social Media. The Plaintiff’s grievance was that there are several Android Application Package providers, who are providing links to these unauthorized websites/applications. The Plaintiff also apprehended that the Defendants may be involved in fraudulent transactions, and collection of money from innocent users under the garb of offering digital currencies, apart from misuse of the Plaintiff’s marks.

The Court, after perusing the websites/mobile applications of the Defendants, held that the Defendants’ websites and platforms appear to be vague, and that they are clearly indulging in misuse of the Plaintiff’s marks. The Court further observed that the Defendants are consciously misleading customers to believe that there exist genuine cryptocurrency/digital currency platforms associated with the Plaintiff, by using similar marks. Accordingly, the Court granted the Plaintiff an ex-parte ad interim injunction restraining the Defendants from offering digital coins/currencies or other services under the marks KOO and bird device, and directed the appropriate government authorities to block the Defendants’ websites and platforms.

Bombinate Technologies Pvt. Ltd. v. KOO Coin and Ors., CS 524/2022, Order dt. August 1, 2022, Delhi High Court