PhonePe and BharatPe on Sunday announced that they have settled their long-standing legal disputes regarding the use of the trademark with the suffix ‘Pe’ in their brand names.
It is to be highlighted that the settlement concludes five-year-long legal disputes across multiple courts.
“Further, both organisations will undertake to take other necessary steps to comply with the obligations under the settlement agreement in respect of all cases before the Hon’ble Delhi High Court and the Hon’ble Bombay High Court,” they said in a joint statement.
Under the settlement, both the companies have decided to withdraw all oppositions against each other in the trademark registry.
This will enable the fintech firms to proceed with the registration of their respective trademarks.
Speaking on the development, Rajnish Kumar, chairman of the board, BharatPe said, “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.”
Founder and CEO of PhonePe, Sameer Nigam said, “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.”
It is to be noted that in June 2021, PhonePe and Resilient Innovations, the brand name of BharatPe, went for a full trial over the use of the word ‘Pe’ after nearly two years of court proceedings.
PhonePe had filed a lawsuit against BharatPe claiming trademark rights over the suffix.
Further, in the October of same year, PhonePe approached the Bombay High Court seeking an injunction to restrain its rival Resilient Innovations from misusing PhonePe’s registered trademarks by using and promoting the marks ‘PostPe’ / ‘postpe’, which is a subsidiary of BharatPe.