In 34 page order, Calcutta HC rejects Rajat Agarwal's trademark protection plea, allows Amin Rozani faction to continue operating 'The Spartan Poker'
The between the two factions of Spa𝕴rtan Poker has been partially resolved. A single judge bench of the Calcutta High Court passed a detailed order on 12th May, 2017 in relation to the civil suit filed by Pokerguru founder Rajat Agarwal against Spartan Online Poker Pvt. Ltd. (the company that operates The Spartan Poker), Amin Rozani and others.
The court in its order ruled that Spartan Online Pvt. Ltd. and the Amin Rozani-led group cannot be asked to refrain froꦺm using the domain name thespartanpoker.com or the brand ‘Spartan Poker’, paving way for The Spartan Poker to continue its operations.
The order of the High Court is now available in the . A comprehensive analysis of the ruling of the court in relation to whether domain names can be treated as trademarks can🌳 be viewed on .
Justice Soumen Sen in his judgment has recordedꦆ in detail the controversy surrounding the alleged partnership/joint venture between Rajat Agarwal and his family on one hand and Amin Rozani, Rajeev Kanjani, Peter Abraham a🎶nd Sameer Rattonsey on the other.
Justice Sen has noted the existence of a Memorandum of Understanding and emails between the two factions, which has created a quasi-partnership arrangement and profits were shared by the two factions. The court also refers to the fact that Agarwal had contributed some amount for issue of share capital, but the same has been denied by Quadrific Mꦏedia Pvt. Ltd., the company that originally operated Spartan Poker.
Further, it has been noted that while Agarwal in Quadrific Media, he was given a share of the profits and remun𓆏eration as director of the company.
The 𝄹genesis of the dispute however is the defalcation and misappropriation of funds by , criminal action taken against Bhalla by the company and Agarwal’s reluctance in taking a stand against Bhalla’s allege🌌d action.
The Court observed that it is now well settled in India that domain names are to be protected along the same lines as trademarks, citing previous judgments. The court however noted that the domain name ‘www.spartanpoker.com’ was not identified with Rajat Agarwal, Plaintiff No.1. Further, the court observed that not only had the Quadrific applied for the registration of ‘Spartan’ prior to Agarwal but Agarwal had incurred no substantial expenditure apart from the registration of the dom༒ain name.
Agarwal or the other plaintiffs did not spend on developing the web 🐟page, trade dress and designing of the mark and related expenses for its registrati🔯on, the court noted. The court held that the application for Spartan Poker trademark has been objected by Agarwal before the trademark registry, and he may be able to claim damages from Spartan Online only if he succeeds in registering the trademark.
The c𒆙ourt also observed that Agarwal cannot taken the argument that Rozani and others had broken the non-compete clause in the Memorandum of Understanding and emails 🐠as he allegedly breached a clause of the agreement by announcing on Spartan Poker page (which he owned) on 4th December, 2016 that he was starting a new poker website.
The court has however stat𒁏ed that due to the existence of a quasi-partnership arrangement between the two groups, Agarwal may be able to claim a share in the profi🐓ts until , the day he claimed he was launching a separate poker website.
The court h♚as further asked both Quadrific Media and Spartan Online to furnish monthly statements of transactions that have taken place till date as well as further monthly statements of the transactions that will take place. The court will further hear the issue of whether Agarwal can claim a share in the profits of Quadrific Media in July, 2017.
