Bombay High Court refuses interim relief to PhonePe over trademark infringement allegations against Postpe

The Bombay High Court recently rejected plea for interim relief to ‘PhonePe’ in a plea filed against Resilient Innovations, creators of ‘Postpe’ alleging trademark infringement over the word ‘Pe’. [PhonePe Private Limited v. Resilient Innovations Pvt Ltd].Single-judge Justice Manish Pitale concluded that the issue of exclusivity over the word ‘Pe’ was a matter of trial and could not be adjudicated at an interim stage. He also added that as regards as the remaining portions of the mark, 'Phone' and 'Post', there seemed to be no similarity between them.“At this stage, this Court is unable to agree with the plaintiff that gullible or uneducated persons or even educated and aware customers would be confused between the services of the rival parties. This Court also finds that the central idea sought to be conveyed by the two rival trademarks taken as a whole is distinct, particularly when the rival pleadings are appreciated,” the judge observed holding no strong case was made out for interim relief..The plaintiff, PhonePe’s case was that it had registered the trademark ‘Pe’ in Devanagari Hindi script in 2014. The company provided mobile phone applications that facilitated financial transactions through online and offline payment modes. It explained that the reason for registering the mark ‘Pe’ was because in Hindi it meant ‘on’ and the company provided services on mobile phones.It pleaded that use of the term ‘Postpe’ would affect their business..Resilient, the defendant company which owns Postpe, explained that the term ‘Postpe’ was coined from the concept of postponed payment indicating that the customers can buy now and pay later. Resilient pleaded that the service was distinct from the payment service offered by PhonePe.It argued that PhonePe could not at this stage claim exclusivity on part of its trademark ‘pe’ as it was a matter of trial. The same had also been held by the Delhi High Court in a pending suit filed by PhonePe against Resilient, for its mark ‘BharatPe’. .Justice Pitale concluded that PostPe was able to show material which created prima facie distinction between nature of services provided by the rival parties.“It appears that the endeavour of the plaintiff is to claim that, 'pe' may connote 'payment' but, in its registered trademark, it refers to the colloquial Hindi term 'on', thereby further alleging that the defendant by using 'pe' has sought to come as close as possible to the registered trademark of the plaintiff,” the Court said dismissing the interim application..Senior Advocates Ravi Kadam and Venkatesh Dhond with Advocates Rohan Kadam, Thomas George, Tanvi Sinha, Navankur Pathak, Neeti Nihal briefed by Saikrishna & Associates appeared for PhonePe.Resilient was represented by senior Advocates Virag Tulzapurkara and Sharan Jagtiani with Advocates Mohit Goel, Siddhant Goel, Abhishek Kotnala, Aditya Goel, Deepankar Mishra and Karmanya Dev Sharma from Sim & San Attorneys at Law and Nishad Kulkarni, Aasif Navodia, Khushboo Jhunjhunwala from Khaitan & Co.[Read Order]