Delhi High Court: In an application seeking injunction to restrain the defendant from infringing the trade mark, passing off, misrepresentation, dilution, unfair competition by directly or indirectly using, selling, advertising, mentioning, or dealing in any manner, including as part of a domain name, the Marks ‘BOOKMYYATRA.COM’ or ‘BOOKMYYATRA’ (‘impugned trade marks’), a Single Judge Bench of Tejas Karia J., observed that the word ‘YATRA’, was a generic and commonly descriptive word, meaning ‘travel’ in Hindi and could never become trade mark on its own as such words never acquire distinctiveness or a secondary meaning and do not indicate origin or source. It is settled law that words used in everyday language cannot be allowed to be monopolized.
The Court further noted that ‘.com’ and ‘YATRA’ are both generic and non-distinctive making ‘YATRA.COM’ also generic, and thus, it could not be protected under common law of passing off. Thus, the defendant cannot be prevented from using the impugned trade marks ‘BOOKMYYATRA’ and ‘BOOKMYYATRA.COM’.
Background:
The plaintiff, registered proprietor of the trade marks, ‘YATRA.COM’, ‘YATRA WITH DEVICE (Device) i.e, 
‘YATRA FREIGHT’ and ‘YATRA FREIGHT (Device) i.e., 
’ (‘Subject Marks’) adopted trade mark ‘YATRA’ in the year 2005 as a part of its trade name / corporate name and had started business of providing online travel booking and related services to its customers in 2006 via www.yatra.com, mobile apps, and other platforms. Its offerings included air ticketing, hotel bookings, holiday packages, bus/rail bookings, and more, catering to B2C, B2B, corporate travel, and MICE segments.
In 2007, the Plaintiff applied for registrations under Class 39, which contained a disclaimer stating that ‘No exclusive right for the word YATRA’ and Word Mark registrations for ‘YATRA.COM’ in Classes 38, 42, and 45. Over time, the plaintiff built a strong brand, supported by a large customer base, robust tech platform, seasoned management, and has received awards from the Ministry of Tourism, Government of India. As of March 31, 2024, around 15 million customers had availed its services.
In November 2024, the Plaintiff discovered through a BSE website transcript that the defendant, was planning to launch a portal under the name ‘BOOK MY YATRA’. Further investigation led to the defendant’s Draft Red Herring Prospectus which also referred to its B2C travel venture under the same mark. The plaintiff also found a website www.bookmyyatra.com (under construction) that mentioned the defendant’s name prominently. Additionally, trade mark registry searches revealed that the defendant had applied for marks ‘BookMyYatra’ and ‘BookMyYatra.com’, which the Plaintiff claims were deceptively similar and adopted with mala fide intention for identical services with an intention to harp on the reputation and goodwill created by the plaintiff due to their long and extensive use of the marks ‘YATRA’ / ‘YATRA.COM’ and the quality of services associated with the said marks. Thus, the present application for grant of ad-interim injunction was filed before the Court.
Analysis and Decision:
The Court observed that it was a settled law that the generic and commonly descriptive marks, which describe the nature of the business or the services could not be exclusive to the proprietor of the registered trademark. The Court further observed that Section 30 of the Trade Marks Act, 1999 (‘1999, Act’) provides for limits on the effect of the registered trade mark when the use of the mark in relation to goods or services indicates the kind, quality, quantity, intended purpose, value, geographical origin, the time of production of goods or rendering of services or other characteristics of goods or services.
The Court on plaintiff’s claims that subject mark ‘YATRA’ was the most dominant and essential feature of ‘YATRA.COM’, ‘YATRA WITH DEVICE (Device) i.e , 
‘YATRA FREIGHT’ and ‘YATRA FREIGHT (Device) i.e., 
’ observed that subject mark ‘YATRA’ being a synonym for travel in Hindi, though a dominant and essential part of registered Device Mark of the Plaintiff, could not be used to claim monopoly as it was generic, commonly descriptive for the service of travel and tourism.
The Court further observed that when the plaintiff adopted words in common use for its own trade name / corporate name, it ran the risk of the same mark being used by others. The Court further noted that a generic or commonly descriptive words could never become trademark on their own as they never acquire distinctiveness or a secondary meaning and do not indicate origin or source. It was settled law that words used in everyday language could not be allowed to be monopolized.
The Court further observed that for acquiring a secondary meaning, the primary meaning of the expression had to be lost and left behind. Further, the claim of a secondary meaning had to satisfy that although the primary meaning of the expression with which it began, no longer meant what it used to prior to the adoption by the plaintiff. The Court further observed that to hold that ‘YATRA’ has acquired a secondary meaning, the plaintiff had to demonstrate uninterrupted use for considerable length without any competitor attempting to use the said Mark and for ‘YATRA’ to acquire a secondary meaning and to be associated exclusively with the plaintiff, it had to be explained the primary meaning of the word ‘YATRA’, which was said to have been lost.
The Court observed that ‘YATRA’ being a generic and descriptive word was evident from the disclaimer of the Registrar Trademarks granting the Device Marks of the plaintiff. The Court further explaining the scope of such disclaimers noted that the disclaimers were placed to prevent the proprietor of the registered mark from trying to expand the right beyond their legitimate bounds or claim special advantages in the disclaimed portions. The Court further elaborated that the Plaintiff’s registered marks were Device Marks and not Word Marks and thus, no infringement could be brought merely because of the use of the word ‘YATRA’ by the defendant.
The Court noted that defendant’s trademark when viewed as a whole was distinguishable by the prefix ‘BookMy’. The Court found merit in defendant’s arguments that he did not have a logo / device and only had Word Marks ‘BookMyYatra’ and ‘BookMyYatra.com’, with B, M and Y in capitals and rest in small case, while the Plaintiff’s use of word ‘YATRA’ is all in small case in Red and a particular style.
The Court refused to accept plaintiff’s submission that ‘BookMy’ had been adopted from another well-known third-party website, i.e., ‘BookMyShow.com’ and clubbed with the subject mark ‘YATRA.COM’ stating that it had in BigTree Entertainment (P) Ltd v. Brain Seek Sportainment (P) Ltd, 2017 SCC OnLine Del 12166, held that the words ‘BOOKMY’ were descriptive in nature and the trade mark ‘BOOKMYSHOW’ had not acquired a distinctive meaning for grant of injunction against the use of the prefix ‘BOOKMY’. The Court noted that thus the defendant’s marks ‘BookMyYatra’ and ‘BookMyYatra.com’ did not violate any trademark in ‘BOOKMY’ or ‘YATRA’ disjunctively or collectively as a whole.
The Court noted that it was settled law that ‘.com’ being a Top Level Domain (‘TLD’) and entirely generic, could not have any distinctiveness at all as no one could claim exclusivity in any TLD or any domain suffix of any level. The Court thus, observed that ‘YATRA.COM’ could not be protected differently than ‘YATRA’ as the disclaimer for the word ‘YATRA’ at the time of registration of subject marks would also apply to ‘YATRA.COM’ in Class 39 and both ‘YATRA’ and ‘.com’ being generic and commonly descriptive, ‘YATRA.COM’ was also generic and could not be protected under common law of passing off and hence the defendant could not be prevented from using the impugned trade marks ‘BOOKMYYATRA’ and ‘BOOKMYYATRA.COM.
The Court thus, observed that no prima facie case was made out for granting the interim injunction against the defendant to restrain them from using the Marks ‘BOOKMYYATRA’ / ‘BOOKMYYATRA.COM’ and the domain name / website, www.bookmyyatra.com and dismissed the application.
[Yatra Online Ltd. v. Mach Conferences and events Ltd., 2025 SCC OnLine Del 5610, decided on 22-8-2025]
Advocates who appeared in this case:
For the Plaintiff: Pravin Anand, Jaya Negi and Yashi Agarwal, Advocates
For the Defendant: Saurabh Prakash, Utsav Jain and Anant Aditya Patro, Advocates
