Digital payments players BharatPe and PhonePe have put an end to a long ongoing legal battle over the use of the trademark with the suffix ‘Pe' through an outside court settlement.
“This is a positive development for the industry. I appreciate the maturity and professionalism shown by the Management of both sides, working closely to resolve all outstanding legal issues and moving ahead to focus their energy and resources on building robust digital payment ecosystems," said Rajnish Kumar, Chairman of the Board, BharatPe in a media statement on May 26.
Both firms have taken steps to withdraw all oppositions against each other in the trademark registry which will help them to proceed with the registration of their respective marks, the firms said in the joint statement.
"I am glad that we have reached an amicable resolution in this matter. This outcome will benefit both companies to move forward and focus our collective energy on growing the Indian fintech industry as a whole. I would like to thank Mr. Rajnish Kumar and his team for working with us to get to this positive outcome," said Sameer Nigam, Founder and CEO PhonePe.
The tussle over the usage of 'Pe' has been ongoing since 2018.
In August 2018, PhonePe had issued a cease and desist notice, calling upon BharatPe to stop using the trademark name ‘BharatPe’, with 'Pe' written in Devanagari Hindi script.
In response to this BharatPe agreed to stop using ‘BharatPe’ with ‘Pe’ in Devanagari and gave up use of the same. Thereafter, the defendant started using the mark ‘BharatPe’ only for its services.
In 2019, PhonePe filed a suit against BharatPe in the Delhi High Court alleging that by using the trademark ‘BharatPe’, the company had infringed upon the registered trademark of 'PhonePe’.
In October of 2021, BharatPe parent Resilient Innovations Pvt. Ltd had filed six petitions seeking cancellation of registrations held by PhonePe Pvt. Ltd, for the ‘Pe’ logo in Devanagari before the IP division of the high court.
In 2021, PhonePe filed a Commercial IP Suit against BharatPe for registration of the trademark ‘PostPe, and ‘postpe’ in various classes. PhonePe argued that BharatPe was trying to claim some sort of exclusivity or distinctiveness in part of its mark i.e. 'pe'.
For this, the Bombay HC had made certain observations in PhonePe's petition and had asked the company to file a fresh petition incorporating the observations.
Resilient Innovation had filed an SLP (Special Leave Petition) in the Supreme Court against the Bombay High Court's order that allowed PhonePe to file a fresh suit against the company. However, the top court dismissed the petition.
In April 2023, the Bombay High Court dismissed the interim injunction application filed by PhonePe against BharatPe's Buy-Now-Pay-Later (BNPL) arm PostPe, for restraining the use of the brand name 'PostPe, "which was identical or similar to PhonePe's trademarks.
However, the firms have decided to put an end to this long-standing legal battle.
"Both organizations will undertake to take other necessary steps to comply with the obligations under the settlement agreement in respect of all cases before Hon’ble Delhi High Court and Hon’ble Bombay High Court," the firms said in a joint statement on May 26.
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