Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu has come out in support of Zerodha CEO Nithin Kamath after the Delhi High Court held Google liable for trademark infringement in a major case involving sanitaryware brand Hindware.

Reacting to the judgment, Vembu said Google’s advertising practices were unethical and deserved scrutiny. “I am with Nithin on this. What Google was doing was completely unethical and I am glad it has been found illegal in India. They need to be held to account for these shady business practices,” he wrote on X.

What the Delhi High Court said

In the judgment delivered on May 22, Justice Mini Pushkarna ruled in favour of Hindware and against Google in a long-running dispute over keyword advertising.

The court found that Google allowed advertisers to purchase the trademarked term “HINDWARE” as a keyword through its Google Ads platform. As a result, users searching for Hindware were shown sponsored links from competing brands such as Cera and Grohe at the top of search results.

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The court permanently restrained Google from using “HINDWARE” and similar variations as advertising keywords and ordered the company to pay Rs 30 lakh in damages. Rejecting Google’s argument that it was merely an intermediary, the court held that the company could not claim safe-harbour protection under the Information Technology Act because it actively operated and profited from the advertising system.

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Why the court called it trademark infringement

According to the judgment, Hindware is a unique and coined trademark rather than a generic word. The court observed that users searching for the term were specifically looking for Hindware products. Google had argued that keywords are invisible backend tools and therefore do not amount to trademark use. However, the court disagreed, saying that even invisible keywords are part of the advertising process because they trigger promotional content and influence the results shown to users.

The judgment noted that allowing competitors to bid on a trademarked name diverted traffic away from the rightful brand and enabled rivals to benefit from its reputation and customer trust. The court also said Google was effectively monetising the commercial value of a trademark it did not own and that its practices did not follow “honest practices” in commercial matters.

Nithin Kamath says businesses have suffered for years

Nithin Kamath wrote on X that the issue has affected companies for more than a decade, especially businesses that do not spend heavily on advertising. “In a landmark judgment on May 22, 2026, the Delhi High Court held Google liable for trademark infringement,” Kamath wrote while explaining the significance of the decision. Using Zerodha as an example, he said that when people search for the company online, competitor advertisements often appear before Zerodha’s own result.

“Whenever someone searches for ‘Zerodha’, the traffic should rightfully come to Zerodha. But what often happens is that the first couple of results on Google Search are ads, leading the customer to a competitor’s website,” he said. Kamath added that although the losses are difficult to measure, businesses have likely lost significant traffic and customers because of the practice.

Paying Google to protect your own brand

Kamath also explained what he described as an ironic aspect of digital advertising. According to him, many businesses end up bidding on their own brand names to prevent competitors from buying those keywords and capturing traffic that should have reached them organically. “If you own a business and have a trademarked name for your business, you still have to pay Google just to hopefully make your name too expensive for your competition to run ads on it,” he said.

He argued that the Delhi High Court ruling now gives companies a legal route to challenge such practices whenever they occur. Kamath said the judgment could be particularly important for startups, which often operate with limited resources and cannot afford to lose customers to larger competitors.

“The last thing they need is for competitors to bid on their brand keywords and steal their traffic,” he said. He added that the ruling helps level the playing field by opening the door for legal action against companies that use trademarked brand names to divert users through keyword advertising.

The problem goes beyond Google Search

Kamath also pointed to app stores, where competitor advertisements often appear around searches for a specific brand. According to him, the impact can be even greater because users who click on app-store ads frequently install rival apps immediately, making those advertisements more effective than ordinary web search ads. For companies that rely on organic discovery rather than advertising budgets, Kamath said such practices have long created an unfair disadvantage.