Delhi Court fines Google over Hindware keyword ads

The Delhi High Court has found Google liable for trademark infringement and directed it to pay Rs 30 lakh in damages to sanitaryware major Hindware, in the case Hindware Ltd v. Grohe India Pvt Ltd and others, according to Bar and Bench and The Print. The court held that allowing competitors to bid on Hindware's registered mark "HINDWARE" as a keyword in Google's AdWords programme infringed the trademark.

Per Bar and Bench, Justice Mini Pushkarna rejected Google's defence that it was a passive "intermediary" under the IT Act, reasoning that it is not necessary for a registered mark to physically appear in an advertisement for it to be used "in advertising." The Print reports the court found that by listing "HINDWARE" as a biddable keyword, Google was selling the commercial pull of a brand it did not own and earning pay-per-click revenue as users searching for Hindware were diverted to competitors.

The dispute dates to 2013, when Hindware found rival Cera Sanitaryware purchasing the "HINDWARE" keyword, followed in 2014 by fittings maker Grohe, according to The Print. The judgment also restrains rivals from bidding on the mark.

Inc42, which surfaced the ruling in a roundup on advertising in the AI age, links it to a broader shift in which ad platforms increasingly use automated, model-driven targeting rather than explicit advertiser-chosen keywords. That connection is industry framing rather than part of the court's findings: the case turns on conventional keyword bidding. For ad-tech and ML teams, the generic takeaway is that trademark exposure can persist as targeting becomes more automated, making auditability of how advertiser inputs map to placements a sensible precaution.

Whether other Indian courts cite the judgment in disputes over automated ad placement, and whether Google appeals or changes how it handles trademarked keywords in AdWords.