iProperty Malaysia fights to protect the interests of its customers
Aug 16, 2011
iProperty.com Malaysia’s fight to protect the interests of its customers took a positive step forward when HomeGuru, a property website in Malaysia owned by Singapore-based AllProperty Media Pte Ltd, provided a written Undertaking to the Court in lieu of injunction not to reproduce in any manner whatsoever and/or communicate to the public property listings allegedly taken from iProperty.com.my Malaysia’s No. 1 Property website.
HomeGuru also provided an Undertaking to the Court to cease further dissemination and broadcast of its series of “Ah Beng and Ah Lian Search for The True Guru” videos of which iProperty.com strongly feels is defamatory.
The Undertakings were duly recorded with the Kuala Lumpur High Court on 9 August 2011 by HomeGuru on a non-admission of liability basis and these Undertakings arose out of an application for injunction order filed by iProperty Malaysia against HomeGuru.
The said application for injunction was filed by iProperty as part of a civil suit they have filed against HomeGuru for Copyright Infringement, Defamation and Passing-off.
As the exclusive licensee of the copyright subsisting in the property listings supported by five real estate agent plaintiffs, iProperty.com Malaysia has taken action against HomeGuru for copyright infringement of property listings belonging to the five real estate agents.
These were found to be copied and listed on homeguru.com.my without the knowledge and permission from all parties.
HomeGuru broadcasted a series of videos on Youtube featuring Malaysian celebrities Jack Lim and Gan Mei Yan touting the company as the “True Guru” which contained words and images implying iProperty.com Malaysia is the “False Guru”.
iProperty.com Malaysia launched Home-Guru.com.my, a property website distribution channel prior to HomeGuru’s launch of their Malaysia property website HomeGuru.com.my. This is causing confusion amongst the industry and public as it is almost identical in name.
HomeGuru was launched in early March this year and openly claims to have 55,000 property listings with a registered database of up to 5,000 real estate agents and pageviews hitting more than one million since 26 January 2011. The alleged statistics were seriously disputed by iProperty.com Malaysia.
“iProperty.com Malaysia has spent over 9 years of hard work, clear focus and cultivating relationships with its clients to allow us to have more than 160,000 listings,” commented Shaun Di Gregorio, CEO of the iProperty Group. iProperty.com Malaysia also currently has over 7,000 property agent subscribers advertising on our website.
“We aim to provide the best service and online property advertising experience for our customers and it is unfortunate that the intellectual property of several of our advertisers have been compromised in this manner,” said Di Gregorio.
“For the sake of our advertisers and property agents, I’m glad that the recordal of the undertakings with the court has taken place as we are committed to protecting the rights of our advertisers and agents. We shall continue to make every effort to ensure that they get quality leads on our website, everytime,” he added.
In the same proceedings, the High Court had dismissed the applications for injunction filed by iProperty and Homeguru respectively to restrain each other from using the disputed trade mark “Home Guru” on the ground that it is not a fit and proper case for an injunctive relief at this stage.
Instead, the Court has set the suit for early trial on the 7th, 9th, 12th and 13th December 2011.
