Critical analysis of Distinctiveness with respect to Domain name

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Domain name as the name suggests is part of network address which identifies the source or origin as to which particular domain or IPaddress it actually belongs to. It is very similar to trademark, as one of the significant functions of trademark is also to identify the source or origin of goods and services. With respect to critically understand the term ‘distinctiveness’ in domain name, Hon'ble Delhi High Court have delivered a leading case law i.e., Yahoo Inc.V. Akash Arora. In this judgment the issue before the court was that whether trademark is similar to domain name or not? Also, whether plaintiff will be given passing off remedy or not? As plaintiff has registered the word 'yahoo' as trademark and 'yahoo.com' as domain name, whereas defendant came up with domain name 'yahooindia.com'. To which the court said that the defendant is clearly cashing on the goodwill of the plaintiff as the plaintiff has acquired distinctiveness over the word yahoo. Also, internet users are though literate but it cannot be said that they are that much sophisticated that they could easily understand that both the websites belong to different IP address. Anyone visiting ‘yahooinida’ may have an impression that it belongs to yahoo.com itself and it may be specifically for India. Thus, the defendant is actually diverging plaintiff’s website by creating confusion in the mind of the internet users.

Court also said that when a particular word acquires distinctive character and people started recognizing that word with the proprietor then another person cannot be allowed to take advantage from that word in any case. Therefore, the court issued an injunction order thereby restricting the defendant from using the yahoo.

It was also observed by the court also said that domain name can be applied for both goods as well services similar to that of trademark. Thus, it can be concluded that domain name is not just for goods rather they are for services also and no person can cash on goodwill of any other person whose business is associated with any particular mark or word to which the consumers relate with and the word has acquired distinctiveness for the same.

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