The Delhi High Court has, in a suit for injunction by Oracle America Inc. (“Oracle”), permanently restrained Sonoo Jaiswal and Ors., (“Defendants”) from using the Oracle’s JAVA mark as a part of their domain name and on/in relation to allied or cognate goods or services.
Oracle argued that the Defendants’ use of the JAVA T POINT mark for software training services on the website infringed on Oracle's earlier JAVA trademark rights. The defendants have also used the mark JAVA in their corporate names and offered Oracle Certified Training on their website, implying a false association with Oracle. The Defendants, on the other hand, argued that, firstly, JAVA is a programming language and cannot be monopolized andsecondly, the rival marks are dissimilar. Oracle has clarified that it does not intend to monopolize the use of Java as a trademark and has published Third Party Usage Guidelines on its website outlining permissible and prohibited usage.
The Court held that mere addition of the ‘TPOINT’ as a suffix, does not take away from the fact the ‘JAVA’ is a prominent part of Defendants which is purely used in manner of trade mark. The logo used by the Defendants goes beyond referencing to the programming language in a descriptive or educational context. The court further noted that use of the JAVA as a part of Defendant’s domain name, does not align with the Oracle’s policy of permitted use and therefore use of JAVA in Defendant’s domain name would also amounts to an infringement.
The counsel of Defendants further undertook to alter the corporate names to exclude ‘JAVA’ and shall take all the necessary steps to change name and shall file the affidavit as directed by the court.
ORACLE AMERICA INC vs. SONOO JAISWAL AND ORS, CS(COMM) 2/2024, Order dt February 12,2024
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