Case No. EWHC-941-(IPEC)

48.Mr Younas and Mr Craig gave evidence as to how the name Muzmatch came to be chosen. They explained that, in the course of office banter between a group of colleagues at Morgan Stanley, various names had been suggested for dating services for different faith communities (including names such as IdoHindu, iJew, SeekSikh). In the course of this, someone (probably Mr Craig, but possibly Mr Younas himself) suggested “muzmatch” would be an appropriate name for the matchmaking services that Mr Younas was thinking of providing to the Muslim community. 49.Mr Craig stated that he didn’t recall knowing at the time of Match as he was recently married and dating services were “not on my radar”. Mr Craig was stated that the group from Morgan Stanley had not discussed other existing dating sites on the market and had not carried out any research into names. In cross examination, Mr Austen sought to suggest that Mr Craig must have been aware of Match. However, I see no reason to doubt Mr Craig’s evidence. Mr Younas’ evidence was that he had heard of Match (as well as various other dating websites such as eHarmony, JDate, Shaadi, Jeevansathi, Bharat Matrimony and Single Muslim) and he was aware of it as a mainstream dating website. He said, however, that he was not thinking about Match when he chose “muzmatch” because, in his mind, the word “match” in this context described the service being provided (matchmaking) and linking it to the letters “muz” showed that those services were being directed at Muslims. Mr Younas liked the name because it carried a clear and simple message (a service that helped users find a Muslim match). In effect, the name “says on the tin what the service is for” and was catchy and memorable. 50.Despite that evidence, the pages that I have seen from Muzmatch’s website (certainly those from 2011), do not use the word “match” (or even variants such as “matchmaking”) descriptively but instead refer to the service as being the means to find “your perfect Muslim partner”. The business card used by Muzmatch to promote its services in that period had that same statement on its front whilst, on its reverse, were the words “Halal alternative to find your spouse”. That continued to be how Muzmatch described its services throughout, although I note that Muzmatch’s app, launched in March 2015, does feature a page which states “it’s a muzmatch” when notifying a user that its search has found a potential partner. 51.Mr Younas also gave evidence that he had no intention of suggesting any connection between Muzmatch and Match and, indeed, that any such suggestion would have been damaging given the taboo in the Muslim community surrounding the use of mainstream dating websites. I will return to this later in this judgment