Recently, Microsoft instituted a suit seeking permanent injunction against Vacation Rental Services Private Limited & Ors. (“VRS”), that were using the well-known MICROSOFT mark and logo without any authorization or license from Microsoft.
Microsoft’s case was that VRS had been misrepresenting themselves as being related to Microsoft in order to defraud innocent customers. In January 2021, the Cyber Cell of New Delhi had received an anonymous criminal complaint regarding fraudsters running online cheating/fraud racket from their call centre in Delhi, targeting foreign nationals of Spain, posing as executives of Microsoft. During the criminal proceeding, various hard disks, laptops, email accounts, wi-fi routers, etc. were seized from VRS’ premises and fake invoices issued on behalf of Microsoft were recovered from VRS’ computer systems. Moreover, criminal proceedings in Spain revealed that one of the defendants was the recipient of illicit money transfers from defrauding innocent victims. Microsoft averred that the defendants were acting in consort with each other to carry out infringing activities and duping innocent victims on the false pretext of being associated with Microsoft, which resulted is negatively impacting its goodwill and reputation.
The court was quick to grant an ex-parte ad-interim injunction restraining VRS from using the MICROSOFT mark and logo and any deceptively similar marks and from misrepresenting and impersonating as being Microsoft.
Microsoft Corporation & Anr. v. Vacation Rental Services Private Limited & Ors. CS(COMM) 158/2022 Delhi High Court
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