The makers of “Runningshaadi.com†have been forced to change the title of the movie to “Running Shaadi†following a Bombay High Court order on a petition filed by a popular matrimonial site with a name similar to that of the original title. The film, directed by Shoojit Sircar and starring Tapsee Pannu and Amit Sadh, is slated to release on 17 February.
People Interactive (I) Pvt Ltd.-owned shaadi.com had sought damages of Rs 50 crore from the producers, Crouching Tiger Motion Pictures Pvt Ltd and Rising Sun Films, alleging that the movie not only infringed the company’s trademark, but the concept used in the trailers appeared to tarnish and commercially vilify the brand as well. Following the order, the producers have also changed the Twitter handle of the film to ‘@running_shaadi’, besides modifying the trailers, banners, posters and certain parts of the film.
According to the court website, the case was filed on 9 February and was taken up for hearing on the following. Senior Counsel Virag Tulzapurkar and Gautam Bhatikar, Partner of law firm Kochhar & Co, are representing the matrimonial portal.
According to people familiar with the development, Justice Gautam Patel, observed that, prima facie, it was a good case for injunction and ordered the film makers to remove the word shaadi.com from all promotional material by 13 February evening.
“We had two main concerns. One was the infringement of our trademark in the film’s title. We also wanted to make sure that our brand was not being disparaged in the film. Millions of people get married through Shaadi.com and it is not fair to the brand or its consumers,†Gourav Rakshit, CEO, shaadi.com, told VCCircle.
This was, however, not the first time that the owners of the shaadi.com have approached the high court to protect their trademark. Last year, the company had filed a case against Vivek Pahwa-led Accentium Web Pvt Ltd., to stop the rival from using the word shaadi in its domain name. Secondshaadi.com, as the name suggests, mainly targeted widowed individuals and divorcees. The court had, however, rejected the plea and allowed the respondent to continue with business as usual.
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