Tata Sons, IT unit win battle over domain name

Tata Sons Ltd and its subsidiary Tata Infotech Ltd have won a legal battle over domain name www.tatainfotech.in in the Delhi High Court which restrained Arno Palmen from using it in any of its activities.

“The defendant no 1 (Arno Palmen), its servants, agents and assigns and all others acting on behalf of the defendant are restrained from conducting any business or dealing in any manner including using domain name www.tatainfotech.in or the word TATA or any name comprising of the same or deceptively/ confusingly similar to it regarding any goods, services or domain,” Justice M L Mehta said.

The court also asked Key-Systems GmBH, which is an international ICANN accredited registrar for internet addresses, to cancel registration of domain name www.tatainfotech.in, granted to Arno Palmen.

The judgement came on a lawsuit filed by Tata Sons Ltd, the principal investment holding company of Tata Group, which was established in 1917, and its subsidiary Tata Infotech Ltd, seeking to restrain Arno Palmen from using the domain name and trademark term ‘TATA’.

The oldest and largest corporate conglomerate, in its plea, said the name ‘TATA’ has been derived from the surname of its founder J Nusserwanji Tata and Palmen cannot be allowed to use “deceptively” similar term or words.

Tata Infotech Ltd, which was also a party to the case, said it had registered domain name www.tatainfotech.com in January 1998 to “advance its business activities”.