Permanent Injunction Issued Against Infringement of ‘Dream 11’ Trademark

In an order dated July 7, 2023, the Delhi High Court in the case of Sporta Technologies Pvt Ltd and Anr. V. Unfading OPC Private Limited [CS(COMM) 202/2022 and IA 5072/2022] issued a permanent injunction restraining the defendant from using the mark “Satta Dream 11” in infringement of the plaintiff’s trademarks.

Plaintiff no.2, Dream Sports Inc, a company incorporated in the USA, got the domain www.dream11.com registered in March 2008. The plaintiffs, registered proprietors of “Dream 11” trademarks, filed the present suit against the defendant, owner and operator of the website www.sattadream11.com.

In April 2022, an interim injunction was issued against the defendant. Moreover, the defendant neither filed a written statement nor appeared before the Court despite being served through email, speed post and electronic mode.

The Court observed that the gaming services hosted on the defendant’s website were identical to those of the plaintiffs. Further, it was remarked that the impugned domain name was “nothing but a malafide attempt to ride on the goodwill of the Plaintiff’s mark ‘Dream11′”. Holding both the marks to be similar, the Single Judge Bench of Justice Prathiba M Singh held that “the use of such similar sounding domain names and that too for identical services inevitably results in passing off of one service as that affiliated, sponsored or connected with the other“.

Apart from issuing the permanent injunction, the Court directed GoDaddy.com LLC to transfer the domain name, www.sattadream11.com, to the plaintiffs.