For more than a decade, Hindware fought a legal battle over a deceptively simple question: when a user searches for a brand name on Google, can a competitor pay to appear first through a sponsored advertisement triggered by that brand’s trademark?
The Delhi High Court has now answered that question in Hindware’s favour, holding Google liable for trademark infringement for the use of the registered mark HINDWARE as a keyword in its advertising programme. The court imposed damages of ₹30 lakh on Google, awarding ₹15 lakh each in two commercial suits, and directed that the amount be paid within eight weeks.
Justice Mini Pushkarna rejected Google’s defence that it was merely an intermediary entitled to safe-harbour protection under Section 79 of the Information Technology Act. The court found that Google was not a passive platform but an active participant in the keyword advertising ecosystem, where it operated auctions, suggested keywords, ranked advertisements and earned revenue from sponsored clicks.
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A Trademark Dispute Born Inside the Search Bar
The dispute began with commercial suits filed by Hindware, through its predecessor HSIL, in 2013 and 2014. The suits were brought against Grohe India, Omkara Infoweb, Cera Sanitaryware and Google entities over keyword advertising on Google’s AdWords platform.
Hindware’s complaint was that when users searched for its registered mark on Google, sponsored results of rival brands appeared prominently. According to the company, competitors had purchased “HINDWARE” and related combinations such as “HINDWARE SANITARY” as keywords, allowing their websites to appear as sponsored links when consumers searched for Hindware.
During the trial, Grohe, Cera and Omkara settled with Hindware, and decrees were passed against them. That left Google India and Google LLC as the only contesting defendants.
Hindware built its case around the strength of its brand. It traced use of the HINDWARE mark to 1991 and relied on earlier recognition of HINDWARE as a well-known trademark by the Delhi High Court. Its argument was that Google’s sale and suggestion of the mark as a keyword, without consent, amounted to “use in advertising” under Section 29(6) of the Trade Marks Act, even if the word itself did not visibly appear in the advertisement.
Google’s Intermediary Defence Falls Short
Google argued that keywords are invisible backend triggers, not trademark use perceived by consumers. It said advertisers alone choose keywords and create the ad text, while Google merely provides advertising space. Since Google itself did not display or affix Hindware’s mark in its own advertisements or business papers, it argued that no trademark infringement could be made out.
The company also invoked Section 79 of the Information Technology Act, claiming safe-harbour protection as an intermediary. Its position was that it played a neutral technical role and should not be held liable for third-party information as long as it observed due diligence.
The court was not persuaded.
Justice Pushkarna examined the structure of the AdWords ecosystem and flagged Google’s active involvement in keyword advertising. Google did not merely host content, the court found. It operated keyword auctions, suggested popular search terms through its keyword planner, ranked advertisements using a quality score and derived revenue from every click on sponsored links.
Those functions, the court concluded, made Google more than a passive conduit. It was participating in and monetising the commercial use of third-party trademarks. That finding became central to the rejection of Google’s safe-harbour claim.
The Court’s View: Invisible Keywords Can Still Be Commercial Use
The most significant part of the judgment lies in how the court treated the use of a trademark as a keyword.
Google’s argument rested heavily on invisibility. If the trademark was not displayed to users in the advertisement text, it said, there was no use of the mark in the trademark sense. Hindware’s counter was that the keyword still performed a commercial function: it diverted user attention and triggered rival ads when consumers searched for the Hindware brand.
The court accepted Hindware’s position.
Justice Pushkarna held that Google’s sale and suggestion of the HINDWARE mark as a keyword to direct competitors, without authorisation and for commercial gain, took unfair advantage of the mark and was contrary to honest practices.
The court noted that Google “suggests, offers and sells” words, including trademark terms, as keywords to advertisers. This, it held, was not merely internal use of a trademark term but clear commercial use. Because Google derived a distinct advantage from the use of trademarks as keywords, the use amounted to trademark use by Google.
The court also restrained Google from using the marks or names HINDWARE, HINDWARE SANITARY, HINDWARE SANITARYWARE and HINDWARE SANITARYWARE INDIA, or any combination of those marks.
Why the Judgment Matters for Digital Advertising
The ruling could have implications beyond Hindware and sanitaryware brands. Keyword advertising sits at the centre of modern digital marketing. Companies routinely bid on search terms to reach consumers at the moment of purchase intent. When those search terms include trademarks, the practice has long raised hard questions about competition, consumer confusion and platform responsibility.
The judgment pushes responsibility upward in the advertising chain. It does not treat the search platform as a neutral pipe where advertisers alone carry responsibility. Instead, it recognises that platforms design the auction, recommend terms, rank ads and monetise the attention generated by brand searches.
That approach may be closely watched by trademark owners who have long objected to competitors buying their brand names as search triggers. It may also concern digital platforms and advertisers who argue that keyword advertising can be a legitimate competitive tool, particularly where ads are clearly labelled and do not mislead consumers.
The court characterised the damages as nominal, awarding ₹30 lakh in total. But the legal finding is more consequential than the amount. It places a boundary around the commercial use of trademarks in advertising systems where the contested use may be invisible to the consumer but economically valuable to the platform.
For Google, the judgment narrows the space for relying on intermediary protection in cases where the court finds active platform involvement. For brand owners, it offers a judicial recognition that trademark misuse in the digital economy may occur not only in visible copy or counterfeit goods, but also in the hidden mechanics of online advertising.
