New Delhi, May 29 -- The Delhi High Court has fined Google Rs 30 lakh for misusing the registered trademark "HINDWARE" as an auctionable advertising keyword, ruling that the tech giant was effectively selling the "commercial pulling power" of a brand it had no right to profit from.

The dispute has its roots in 2013, when Hindware, a leading sanitaryware manufacturer, discovered that rival Cera Sanitaryware and its website developer Omkara Inforweb had been periodically purchasing the "HINDWARE" keyword through Google's AdWords programme. The following year, plumbing fixtures manufacturer Grohe was found to be doing the same.

The result was that when customers searched for Hindware on Google, Cera and Grohe products appeared prominently ...