After failing to sort out the issue mutually, PhonePe, Flipkart’s digital payment venture has now approached the courts to stop BharatPe from using the ‘Pe’ suffix in its name, a Times of India report states.
PhonePe has been in talks with BharatPe from August 2018 to drop ‘Pe’ from its name. Having failed to convince BharatPe beyond making a few changes in the colour of the fonts etc. in its logo, PhonePe has filed a petition in Delhi High Court asking the court to restrain the Delhi company from using the name. The appeal was first filed in May this year.
“The present suit has been filed seeking an injunction restraining infringement of trademark, passing off, damages,” a Times of India report quotes the court filing as stating.
The court did not order any restraint and even at the latest hearing, the date for the next hearing has been fixed for October 9, without any relief to PhonePe. The injunction sought by PhonePe through its layers has not been granted by the HC.
PhonePe is building the case that the use of ‘Pe’ by BharatPe is an infringement of its trademarks rights and is misleading. Customers may conclude both companies are linked to each other.
PhonePe has been in business for long and claims a valuation of $7 billion. BharatPe is a comparatively new entrant into the same digital payments space and is a Delhi-based company and claims to have done $76 million in peer-to-peer transactions in the month of August. Both PhonePe and BharatPe use the UPI platform for their operations.