TATA sues Greenpeace game
By Shalini Singh

In 2009,  Techgoss had reported how business behemoth TATAs which owns hotels, a tech major, car companies and has business interests in every corner of India had sued respected online travel firm MakeMyTrip.com.

MakeMyTrip.com launched an online travel community more than 3.5 years ago and called it OkTataByeBye.com.  TATA lawyers would not permit Tata in OkTataByeBye.com and sued in 2009.  Techgoss had then reported on how suspiciously a few Mumbai based IP addresses were being used to plant fake pro TATA comments. (Full story below).  Techgoss also felt that senior TATA managers were being badly advised to sue in such a case.

Now, TATA has sued Greenpeace for launching an online game ‘Turtle Vs. Tata’ which says: ‘TATAs Dhamra port could be the beginning of the end for Gahirmatha’s turtles. Your objective is simple – get the turtles to eat as many of the white dots – jellyfish and other sea creatures – while dodging the TATA demons! If you eat a power pill, you will be gifted with super-turtle powers to vanquish the demons of development that are threatening your coastal home! Of course, real life isn’t quite so rosy for the turtles, and they need your help to keep fighting for a safer future!’

TATA’s have launched a Rs. 10 crore defamation suit against Greenpeace in the Delhi High Court for using the Tata Logo in their computer game.

While Tata may have all the money in the world, Greenpeace has the hearts and minds of billions.  The Delhi High Court will be hearing the court case in the second week of August.

TATA may win the legal battle, but Greenpeace has already won the PR war. Suing Greenpeace for Rs. 10 Crore will only make them stronger. And will make more people play the game.

(Techgoss had published the following on Sept 16, 2009)

OkTataByeBye: US Support
By Shalini Singh

The battle seems unfair. At one end, you have business behemoth TATAs who own hotels, a tech major, car companies and have business interests in every corner of India.  The TATA’s are highly regarded as professional managers who treat their employees well. At the other end you have a smaller but equally regarded online Travel firm MakeMyTrip.com.

MakeMyTrip.com launched an online travel community more than 2.5 years ago and called it OkTataByeBye.com.

While Tata’s sued MakeMyTrip at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and won a legal victory this year, they have lost the public relations war.  Most Indians are convinced that that it was ok to use Tata in the domain name OkTataByeBye.com.

Now the battle over this Indian domain name is being reported in USA as well.

On Sept 15, powerful American tech and business blog Techdirt ridiculed the WIPO decision in favour of TATAs. Blog Techdirt has 850,000 RSS subscribers and is recommended by prominent editors of Wall Street Journal and Wired. It is essential reading for millions of Americans in the technology and copyright industries.

Techdirt wrote in their article:

“
WIPO Once Again Sides With Trademark Holder Over Common Sense

The phrase "ta ta" is a well known way of saying goodbye. So, it was a cute idea for an Indian online travel site to use the domain name OkTaTaByeBye.com. Except... of course, one of the biggest companies in India happens to be called Tata. So, of course, the Tata corporation went to WIPO complaining of trademark infringement. And WIPO, as it almost always seems to do, sided with the big company, and said that the domain name infringes (thanks, stat_insig). The travel site is planning to appeal, and hopefully whoever hears the appeal will recognize that the site is pretty clearly not associated with Tata. Still, it's yet another example of a big company thinking that its rights extend quite far.
“

The matter has now been appealed to the Delhi High Court.  Lets see what our learned judges have to say.

 
(Techgoss had published the following on Sept 2, 2009)

Tata Vs OkTataByeBye: Fake comments from Mumbai
By Shalini Singh

The battle seems unfair. At one end, you have business behemoth TATAs who own hotels, a tech major, car companies and have business interests in every corner of India.  The TATA’s are highly regarded as professional managers who treat their employees well. At the other end you have a smaller but equally regarded online Travel firm MakeMyTrip.com.

MakeMyTrip.com launched an online travel community more than 2.5 years ago and called it OkTataByeBye.com.

Some manager in TATA for some reason after 2 years felt that OkTataByeBye could be infringing on their company name. TATA’s took their case to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). After four months of hearing the sole WIPO panelist, Indian lawyer Pavan Duggal, ruled in favour of TATA. Pavan was appointed on July 1, 2009 and gave his verdict on August 11, 2009.

While a TATA manager may have won the legal victory, the internet does not agree with them.  Popular business blogs like Watblog and Medianama found the verdict surprising.  Comments on websites and blogs favour MakeMyTrip and its online community OkTataByeBye.

An Indian cartoonist has even drawn up a caustic cartoon castigating TATA’s.

Techgoss has visited the travel community OkTataByeBye.com and after reading the record 1000 plus comments, one gets the feeling that many of the comments supporting the WIPO Judgment are the work of a small, organized group. Techgoss raised our suspicions with the online travel community and checks have revealed that many of pro TATA comments being made under different names/pseudonyms are emanating from the same cluster of IP addresses. Keen to protect the privacy of its commentators, OkTataByeBye issued this brief statement to techgoss “Due to reasons of protecting privacy of visitors to our website and only because this is request from the Media - I can only disclose for the moment the Common IPs (where a bunch of different users show up at the same IP address). The IPs are Mumbai region based in terms of Geography. A couple of the IPs would be 210.211.139.188 and 114.143.230.131”