Delhi High Court: In a case wherein the plaintiff, Burger King Corpn. filed a suit to seek protection of its marks ‘BURGER KING’ and also the Crescent Logo Design 
and Hamburger Refresh Design Logo 
from the defendants who were offering fake franchises under the trade mark ’Burger King‘ to unsuspecting persons, and duping them of large sums of money, Prathiba M. Singh, J.*, opined that there was a need to take stringent action as the application revealed that there was misuse of the domain names. The Court observed that all the domain names and websites, and the bank accounts which were operated through these domain names, were being used to fraudulently collect money under the plaintiff’ name by misusing the plaintiff’s brand and marks. The Court thus deemed it appropriate to extend the injunction of May 2022 to cover these domain names as there was an urgent need to stop any further amounts being received in these fraudulent bank accounts.
In the present case, an application had been filed by the plaintiff seeking orders in respect of fake, illegal, and fraudulent websites using the name ‘Burger King’ in an unauthorised manner. The Court considered the two domain names, www.burgerkingind.co.in and www.burgerkingfranchisee.com, which was brought to its notice. The Court opined that there was a need to take stringent action as the application revealed that there was misuse of the domain names. The Court had already passed interim injunctions recognizing the plaintiff’s right in the mark ‘BURGER KING’ in an order of May 2022 and subsequent orders extending the same to other domain names.
The plaintiff had come across further defrauding by unknown persons and using the two above-mentioned domain names. The Court took note of the plaintiff’s submission that it had been revealed that some unsuspecting consumer who wanted to obtain a Burger King franchise had paid Rs. 2,65,000 to the bank account of the domain name. The Court observed that all these domain names and websites, as well as the bank accounts operated through these domain names, which were being used to fraudulently collect money under the plaintiff’ name by misusing the plaintiff’s brand and marks. The Court thus deemed it appropriate to extend the injunction of May 2022 to cover these domain names as there was an urgent need to stop any further amounts being received in these fraudulent bank accounts.
The Court further issued the following direction:
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Interim Injunction was granted restraining the domains in question from in any manner using the mark/name BURGER KING or the logos, for any purpose, including for collecting moneys under the garb of issuing franchises, dealerships etc.
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GoDaddy.com LLC shall suspend/block the domain names thereby ensuring that the website was no longer accessible to any consumers. Moreover, FastDomain Inc was to suspend/block the domain name thereby ensuring that the website was no longer accessible to any consumers.
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National Internet Exchange of India (‘NIXI’) was also directed not to permit any domain name/website to be opened under the ‘.co.in’ or ‘.in’ extensions consisting of the mark `Burgerking’, where the words ‘BURGER’ and ‘KING’ appear together.
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The Cyber Cell/Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations (‘IFSO’) Delhi Police was allowed to investigate the submitted mobile numbers and act in accordance with law.
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Department of Telecommunications (‘DoT’) and Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (‘MeitY’) shall issue blocking orders qua the above domain names/websites with immediate effect.
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Mareva injunction was granted for freezing the said bank accounts.
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Delhi Police was directed to obtain all the Call Detail Record (‘CDR’) records from the respective telecom service providers, namely Bharti Airtel, Reliance InfoComm Ltd., Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited and investigate into the matter.
The matter would next be listed on 27-09-2023.
[Burger King Corpn. v. Swapnil Patil, 2023 SCC OnLine Del 5784, decided on 15-09-2023]
*Judgement authored by – Justice Prathiba M. Singh
Advocates who appeared in this case :
For the Plaintiff: Mr. Mukul Kochhar and Mr. Raunaq Kamath, Advocates
For the Defendnts: Ms Hetu Arora Sethi, ASC; Ms. Shweta Sahu, Mr. Brijesh Ujjainwal, Advocates
