People Interactive, which runs Shaadi.com, has lost a case in court against Secondshaadi.com (defandant)* where it sought to have the latter stop using the domain name and deregister. In its petition, Shaadi also said that it was trying to get the Secondshaadi from "passing off" as their website. Secondshaadi is a website which caters exclusively for people who wish to remarry while Shaadi.com is India's second largest martimonial website. In Hindi, Shaadi is transliteration of the word for marriage. The petitioners for Shaadi said that services under this mark and domain name have acquired substantial goodwill and repute and said that its domain name has all the characteristics of a trademark. As such, Shaadi said that its mark, has now gained a 'secondary meaning'. On 27th July 2007, Shaadi.com sent a cease-and-desist notice to the defendant. The company declined to comply. On 28th September 2013, Shaadi sent another demand. Shaadi's arguments "The Defendants' domain name (Secondshaadi) is deceptively similar to the Plaintiff's registered marks Shaadi.com and Shadi.com," the petition read. However, the lawyers arguing for Shaadi conceded that its domain name was not inherently distinctive. "Considered in a vacuum, he says (counsel for Shaadi), it is purely descriptive of the services in question. This does not, he submits, by itself preclude the Plaintiff from claiming a monopoly over the mark, since it is well-settled that even a descriptive mark can attain distinctiveness, and is, therefore, capable of being used as a trade mark," the court order read. But the company said that through extensive and…
