High court ends Spartan Poker brand dispute

Sunday 21st of May 2017

The Calcutta High Court had rejected the plea from Rajat Agarwal's Pokerguru to retain exclusive rights to the brand ‘Spartan Poker’, putting an end to a long running dispute between Poker Guru and Quadrific Media (IPC).

According to a Glaws report, a single judge bench of the Calcutta High Court passed a detailed order on May 12, 2017 in relation to the civil suit filed by Pokerguru founder Rajat Agarwal against Spartan Online Poker Pvt. Ltd. (the company that operates The Spartan Poker), Amin Rozani and others.

The court in its order ruled that Spartan Online Pvt. Ltd. cannot be asked to refrain from using the domain name thespartanpoker.com or the brand ‘Spartan Poker’, as the domain ‘www,spartanpoker.com’ was not identified with Rajat Agarwal.

The court also observed that not only had Quadrific Media applied for the registration of ‘Spartan’ prior to Agarwal but Agarwal had incurred no substantial expenditure apart from the registration of the domain name.

The court has however stated that due to the existence of a quasi-partnership arrangement between the two groups, Agarwal may be able to claim a share in the profits until 4th December, 2016, the day he claimed he was launching a competing poker website.

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