[i] Promise Guha, will fight until my pockets are empty,” Whitehat Jr critic Pradeep Poonia said after filing a 20 Cr defamation lawsuit, The Indian Feed (November 26, 2020), www.theindianfeed.in/i-will-fight-till-my-pockets-are-empty-says-pradeep-poonia-the-whistleblower-of-alleged-unethical-and-scam-edu-platform-whitehat-jr-after-the-company-files-20-crore-defamation-case-against-him/. [ix] Pankadi Mehta Kadakia, WhiteHat Jr and the curious case of disappearing dissent, Forbes India (22 October 2020, 13:11), www.forbesindia.com/article/take-one-big-story-of-the-day/whitehat-jr-and-the-curious-case-of-disappearing-dissent/63627/1. Kavya Jha, The Whitehat Jr Controversy: Trademark and Copyright Concerns, Metacept-InfoTech and IPR, available at metacept.com/the-whitehat-jr-controversy:-trademark-and-copyright-concerns. What was the biggest learning experience for you last year? They learn to lead in a crisis. I`ve grown a lot as a person in this whole startup experience. Going from zero to a few hundred million dollars of companies in 18 months to 20 months very quickly. In the beginning, a startup is very focused on product quality. I focused on the quality of the teachers, the quality of the curriculum, the student experience and the functioning of the students. I think the same focus should be on regulatory compliance, marketing, HR – things that aren`t a hot fire at this point. The next time I do a business, I would emphasize it from the beginning. [iii] Harshit Rakheja, WhiteHat Jr. said to remove misleading ads after social media Furore, Inc42 (October 28, 2020), inc42.com/buzz/whitehat-jr-told-to-remove-misleading-ads-after-social-media-furore/. [vii] Manish Singh, Byju WhiteHat Jr.`s Indian startup sues criticism, TechCrunch (22.

November 2020, 22:31), techcrunch.com/2020/11/22/whitehat-jrs-founder-files-2-6m-defamation-suit-against-critic/. [iv] Apoorva Mandhani and Regina Mihindukulasuriya, blessing for banned children or “hype”? Decoding WhiteHat Jr.`s legal fights with critics, The Print (November 30, 2020, 9:59 a.m.), theprint.in/india/boon-for-locked-down-kids-or-marketing-hype-decoding-whitehat-jrs-legal-brawls-with-critics/554008/. Another interesting point is raised by lawyer Nikhil Narendran, a partner at Trilegal, who told Forbes that unlike previous years, when a court visit was required to extract something from the internet, now “there are intermediaries who control the flow of information with their community norms and policies.” In addition to this litigation, WhiteHat Jr. also laying off more than 1,800 employees to cut costs and focus on new growth verticals – B2B sales, math courses and more. To that end, WhiteHat Jr. is working closely with BYJU to leverage the edtech giant`s capabilities in these models. “The truth is that WhiteHat Jr. has grown rapidly around the world because the program was not only effective, but also extremely creative for the children and Indian teachers gave their hearts and souls to teach them. We made mistakes growing up. Our marketing campaigns were poorly designed, which we changed. Legitimate, honest, fact-based criticism is truly welcome. Flash scaling is difficult.

Fires are burning everywhere. Keep giving us feedback to improve. But lies and illegal violations harm real lives and advance no one. Not surprisingly, WhiteHat Jr. has recently come under fire for its aggressive and deceptive advertising practices, as well as its curriculum and teachers. [vi] While WhteHat Jr. admitted that its “marketing campaigns were poorly designed”[vii] and claimed that “legitimate and honest reviews based on facts are truly welcome”[viii], he nevertheless reported numerous messages criticizing the startup on numerous websites such as Twitter and YouTube. She also filed two lawsuits against two of her critics, Pradeep Poonia and Aniruddha Malpani. While these cases highlight various legal issues such as misleading advertising, piracy, and defamation, this article focuses on the intellectual property rights concerns that have been raised. [ii] Rajiv Singh, Exclusive: Advertising organization asked WhiteHat Jr to remove ads, Forbes India (Oct.

27, 2020, 21:15), www.forbesindia.com/article/special/exclusive-advertising-body-asks-whitehat-jr-to-pull-down-ads/63767/1. Jihan eventually uploaded his #whitehatjr to his channel. Hopefully there will be no dismantling this time. #FreedomofExpression t.co/aaSFovAInv@whiteHatSnr@panktimehta @neeleshmisra @malpani @anubhavsinha @rvaidya2000 @tapak7 @realkaranbajaj @forbes_india t.co/AX5IGtnOXk pic.twitter.com/3MbzobSxw5 After a month, Jihan received an email from YouTube stating that WhiteHat`s copyright strike did not comply with legal requirements and therefore the video had been restored. In August, the Mumbai-based edtech startup was acquired by Byju`s in a $300 million cash deal — its largest acquisition to date, Mint reported. Something we don`t talk about, something we did very early in our journey is employee consultation. We are a women-focused company with 11,000 teachers and 40% of the 5,000 non-teaching employees who are also women. All policies have been very well defined from the beginning, from the prevention of sexual harassment in the workplace to maternity. WhiteHat Jr. faced criticism from social media after its ads promised high salaries to students if they learned to code.

According to another Forbes report on October 27, the Advertising Standard Council of India (ASCI) had asked the coding startup to remove its ads, saying it was making misleading claims. [xlvii] Nandan Pendsey and Sudeshna Panigrahi, Doctrine of “nominative fair use” in trademark law, AZB & Partners (December 20, 2019), www.azbpartners.com/bank/doctrine-of-nominative-fair-use-under-trademark-law/. One of the comments shared on a Twitter thread claims that the teacher who is supposed to attend a trial lesson is not familiar with the subject of coding. Poonia`s attorney also claimed that WhiteHat Jr. posted fake positive reviews on the Google Play Store to increase its credibility. “As some of the personal communications between the plaintiffs` teachers and the defendant have shown, the plaintiffs` teachers felt extremely threatened and harassed by the defendant, which is all the more relevant given that the total number of plaintiffs, 11,000 teachers, is female,” the lawsuit states. “As a company, once we have submitted litigation, we trust them and don`t want to comment on submission issues or believe false and frivolous accusations,” said the WhiteHat Jr. spokesperson. Anger at the machine: behind Byju`s swift silence on dissent (The Ken) WhiteHat Jr. has been overshadowed by controversy since its $300 million acquisition by the BYJU`S edtech in mid-2020. He has been accused of publishing controversial ads to deceive and beat the parents of his critics. In addition to Poonia, prominent angel investor Dr.

Aniruddha Malpani was also an outspoken critic of WhiteHat Jr.`s business model. The edtech startup has filed two $2.3 million defamation lawsuits against Poonia and $1.9 million against angel investor Dr. Malpani. In both cases, the programming startup invoked copyright infringement and trademark infringement. Meanwhile, Poonia was also accused of illegally accessing and publishing WhiteHat Jr.`s internal communications. Section 52(1) of the Copyright Act 1957 (“1957 Act”)[xxxvii] contains the exceptions to copyright infringement and establishes the fair trade exception. The factors used to determine fair use in the United States do not apply in India. In 2016, the Delhi High Court clarified that “the general principle of fair use should be interpreted in the clause and not in the four principles by which fair use is determined in overseas jurisdictions and in particular in the United States of America”[xxxviii].

Several people who have published critical reviews of WhiteHat Jr. noticed that their posts were quickly deleted on social media platforms such as YouTube, LinkedIn, Reddit, Twitter and Quora, according to the report. In ITC Limited v. Philip Morris Products,[xxix] the Delhi High Court held that the essential elements for diluting a trademark apply as follows: “We didn`t want to go to court. Startups need intense and unique focus, without distractions. But false and unethical attacks, including attempts to break into company servers and defame teachers, have affected staff and teachers on a daily basis. News cycles have backfired because negative stories are far more sensational than the truth,” Bajaj wrote in a LinkedIn post Monday.