Published on: 12 July 2023 at 01:05 IST
The Delhi High Court has ruled in favor of fantasy sports platform Dream 11, issuing a permanent injunction against a website operating under the name “Satta Dream 11” for offering similar sports betting services. Justice Prathiba M Singh stated that the domain name www.sattadream11.com was a deliberate attempt to exploit the reputation of Sporta Technologies’ registered trademark, Dream11.
The court found the marks “Dream11” and “sattadream 11” to be similar, leading to a high likelihood of confusion, especially in the online domain where the differences may not be easily discernible.
Sporta Technologies had filed a trademark infringement suit against Unfading OPC Private Limited, the operator of www.sattadream11.com and owner of the logo Satta Dream 11. An ex-parte ad-interim injunction was granted in favor of Sporta Technologies on April 1, 2022. During the recent hearing, the defendant entity failed to appear despite repeated notifications, resulting in the court proceeding against them ex-parte. The interim injunction was made absolute for the duration of the suit.
The court noted that the website www.sattadream11.com offered gaming services identical to those of Sporta Technologies, using an identical or similar name. Due to the nature of the internet, similar-sounding website names could be mistaken as affiliated, leading to the passing off of one service as associated with the other.
In addition to granting the permanent injunction, the court directed GoDaddy.com LLC to transfer the domain name www.sattadream11.com to Sporta Technologies, subject to payment of any registration charges.
