{"id":6458,"date":"2021-06-26T06:34:09","date_gmt":"2021-06-26T06:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/swaritadvisors.com\/blog\/?p=6458"},"modified":"2021-08-05T13:04:55","modified_gmt":"2021-08-05T13:04:55","slug":"trademark-dispute-between-phonepe-and-bharatpe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/swaritadvisors.com\/blog\/trademark-dispute-between-phonepe-and-bharatpe\/","title":{"rendered":"Trademark Dispute Between PhonePe and BharatPe &#8211; An Overview"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-drop-cap\">In\na recent Trademark dispute between <strong><em>PhonePe Pvt. Ltd. (Petitioner) and Ezy\nServices &amp; Anr. (Defendant) <\/em><\/strong>on April 15, 2021, the judge of the\nDelhi High Court comprising of <strong><em>Hon\u2019ble Justice C. Hari Shankar, <\/em><\/strong>pronounced\na prominent judgement in a commercial suit filed decided a provisional\napplication between BharatPe and PhonePe regarding whether the use of the\nsuffix <strong><em>\u2018Pe\u2019<\/em><\/strong> in BharatPe mark amounted to a violation of the registered\nmark PhonePe &amp; passing off. The procedures of this case emphasise a\nprovisional application seeking a provisional injunction under Order XXXIX\ntemporary injunctions and interlocutory orders Rule 1 &amp; 2 of the Civil\nProcedure Code. In this write-up, we are going to discuss the recent Trademark\ndispute between PhoenPe and BharatPe. But before we discuss the Trademark\ndispute between PhonePe and BharatPe, let us first understand the meaning of\nTrademark Registration?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_65 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-light-blue ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a3ae7c0ea294\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a3ae7c0ea294\"  aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/swaritadvisors.com\/blog\/trademark-dispute-between-phonepe-and-bharatpe\/#What_is_Trademark_Registration\" title=\"What is\nTrademark Registration?\">What is\nTrademark Registration?<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/swaritadvisors.com\/blog\/trademark-dispute-between-phonepe-and-bharatpe\/#An_Overview_of_Trademark_Dispute_PhonePe_Vs_BharatPe\" title=\"An\nOverview of Trademark Dispute (PhonePe Vs BharatPe)\">An\nOverview of Trademark Dispute (PhonePe Vs BharatPe)<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/swaritadvisors.com\/blog\/trademark-dispute-between-phonepe-and-bharatpe\/#What_are_the_Key_Interpretations_of_the_Court_Concerning_Infringement_under_the_Trademarks_Act_%E2%80%93_Trademark_Dispute\" title=\"What\nare the Key Interpretations of the Court Concerning Infringement under the\nTrademarks Act? \u2013 Trademark Dispute\">What\nare the Key Interpretations of the Court Concerning Infringement under the\nTrademarks Act? \u2013 Trademark Dispute<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-4\" href=\"https:\/\/swaritadvisors.com\/blog\/trademark-dispute-between-phonepe-and-bharatpe\/#Conclusion\" title=\"Conclusion\">Conclusion<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"What_is_Trademark_Registration\"><\/span>What is\nTrademark Registration?<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>A Trademark can be defined as the distinctive identity that makes your company or business, product or service stand out from the rest in the marketplace. A registered Trademark is your company\u2019s Intellectual Property (IP). It safeguards the investment made into creating loyalty &amp; trust among your consumers. The <a href=\"https:\/\/swaritadvisors.com\/trademark-registration\" class=\"text-primary\"><strong>Trademark Registration<\/strong><\/a> provides the right to sue against others who try to imitate or copy your Trademark &amp; avoid others from using an identical Trademark to the one registered by you. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"An_Overview_of_Trademark_Dispute_PhonePe_Vs_BharatPe\"><\/span>An\nOverview of Trademark Dispute (PhonePe Vs BharatPe)<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The petitioner (PhonePe) has filed a suit against the defendant (BharatPe), seeking a permanent injunction &amp; other remedies against the use of the defendant of &#8220;Pe&#8221; or any similar deceptive mark to the Trademark of the plaintiff (PhoenPe) before the High Court of Delhi. Regarding the payment services or in any other manner amounting to the <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/swaritadvisors.com\/trademark-infringement\" class=\"text-primary\">Trademark Infringement<\/a><\/strong> of the petitioner, or passing off, by the defendants of their services as those of the petitioner. Both PhonePe and BharatPe are online payment service providers. In contrast, PhonePe works with customer and merchants, both and BharatPe or EZY Services has a limited merchant business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Court dispersed the application and rejected to permit a provisional injunction against the defendants and correctly held the parties cannot miswrite illustrative or generic works to claim exclusivity over them, particularly at the apparent stage unless there is wide-ranging evidence that such incorrect spelling has acquired secondary meaning via continuous commercial use, i.e., different from the literal meaning which is an element of the High Court has held to be a matter of evidence &amp; trial when the suit is finally heard and decided.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"What_are_the_Key_Interpretations_of_the_Court_Concerning_Infringement_under_the_Trademarks_Act_%E2%80%93_Trademark_Dispute\"><\/span>What\nare the Key Interpretations of the Court Concerning Infringement under the\nTrademarks Act? \u2013 Trademark Dispute<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The Delhi High Court&#8217;s decision in this Trademark dispute seems to be premised based on the following three different principles. In determining this Trademark dispute whether or not the defendants must be ordered from using the \u201cBharatPe&#8221; mark, the Court considered the grant of similarity between two marks. In this context, the evaluation of the marks as an entire and comparison of &#8220;Dominant&#8221; parts of the mark was especially considered by the Court, as described below. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"662\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/swaritadvisors.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/image-23.png\" alt=\"Infringement under the Trademarks Act\" class=\"wp-image-6460\" srcset=\"https:\/\/swaritadvisors.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/image-23.png 662w, https:\/\/swaritadvisors.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/image-23-300x127.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 662px) 100vw, 662px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><strong><em>The Anti-Dissection Rule<\/em><\/strong>:<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>A\nquestion arises whether Trademarks should be compared ultimately? The Court\nnoted that the petitioner has not individually registered the parts of the\n&#8220;PhonePe\u201d mark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Trade Marks Act, 1999<\/strong><sup><a href=\"https:\/\/www.indiacode.nic.in\/handle\/123456789\/1993?locale=en\" class=\"text-primary\"><strong>[1]<\/strong><\/a><\/sup> (Section 17 (1)), specially confers the rights to use the complete Trademark and Section 17 (2) clarifies that such a composite Trademark Registration wouldn\u2019t give exclusive rights over any part of the registered Trademark where the part was not subject of a separate application or where the part hold any term\/word which was familiar to the Trade or identical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The\nCourt cited the case of <strong><em>Kaviraj Pandit Durga Dutt Sharma, <\/em><\/strong>where\nthe Supreme Court had held that Trademarks were to be compared as an entire.\nThis is called the \u201cAnti-Dissection\u201d Rule. The Court cited a series of\ndecisions permitting this principle, like <strong><em>Ashoka Chandra Rakhit Ltd vs Registrar of\nTrademarks<\/em><\/strong> and <strong><em>Ajanta Pharma Ltd. Vs Stiefel Laboratories,\nInc &amp; Anr<\/em><\/strong>. Conflicting combined marks are to be compared by seeking\nthem as an entire, rather than dividing the marks into their component parts\nfor comparison. This is the &#8220;Anti-Dissection&#8221; Rule. The grounds for\nthe rule is that the marks create the business-related impression of a\ncomposite Trademark on a general prospective buyer as an entire, not by its\nparts. Hence, conflicting marks should be compared in their total.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The\nCourt ruled that while applying the principles as mentioned above to the facts\nin hand, the following positions merged that is;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol><li>BharatPe &amp; PhonePe were both composite marks;<\/li><li>The marks couldn\u2019t be cleft into \u201cPhone\u201d &amp; \u201cPe\u201d in the matter of petitioner and \u201cBharat\u201d &amp; \u201cPe\u201d in the matter of the defendant;<\/li><li>The petitioner couldn\u2019t claim exclusivity over the term \u201cPe\u201d as it was simply an incorrect spelling of the word <strong><em>\u201cPAY\u201d; <\/em><\/strong>therefore, no violation of infringement could be claimed on the origin part of a registered Trademark.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><strong><em>The Dominant Mark Test:<\/em><\/strong><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>At\nthis point, the Court examined the law on the prevailing mark test. The Court\nreferred to a judgment of a <strong><em>Division Bench of the Delhi High Court in\nSouth India Beverages<\/em><\/strong>. In these beverages, the Court had explained the test\nof \u201cDominant Mark\u201d. The Court held that while a mark is to be considered as a\ncomplete, significance or supremacy could be granted to mark parts in the\nmatter of composite marks and where a specific aspect enjoys importance\nconcerning other elements or aspects, it would be a &#8220;Dominant Mark&#8221;.\nThe Court has ruled that while the general rule under Section 17 of the\nTrademarks Act was that marks should be measured as complete, courts were\nrequired to remember the comparative supremacy of mark parts. The test was\nwhether any mark part of the petitioner was dominant or was a vital feature\nand, if so, whether such dominant part was violated by the defendant. The Court\nruled that there might be substance to the claim that &#8220;Pe\u201d constituted a foremost\npart or vital feature of the marks, especially as it was a writer with a\ncapital &#8220;P&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\nheld that even though a Trademark is not to be cleft into parts and the parts\ncompared with equivalent parts of the allegedly violating Trademark to assess\nthe existence of a violation, nevertheless, if a \u201cdominant part\u201d or \u201cvital\naspect\u201d of the petitioner\u2019s mark is copied by the defendant, the Court may legitimately\ninspect whether, by such replication, the violation has taken place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><strong><em>Generic or Inclusive of\nDescriptive Words or Parts of Marks:<\/em><\/strong><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>A\nquery arises on a deceptive similarity of the marks of the defendant. The Court\nobserved that while selectiveness couldn&#8217;t be claimed in parts of a registered\nmark, copying of the vital or prevailing features of such marks could\nconstitute infringement. It also simplified that generic marks or illustrative\nmarks are not misspellings &amp; exclusive of descriptive words would not grant\nexclusivity. Further, the Court observed that the petitioner been able to\ncreate the word &#8220;Pe&#8221; had acquired uniqueness and secondary meaning;\nit might have been capable of making out an infringement case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The\nCourt held that such elements were not enough to comprise a case for deceptive\nsimilarity. Interestingly, the Court ruled that the nature of services\ndelivered by the parties were different, as the petitioner was an online\npayment portal while the defendants offered a single QR code which consumers\ncould work with consumer-facing UPI-based apps, comprising the app of the\npetitioner. The Court observed that such consumers who are using the apps could\nbe expected to know the difference. Hence, the Court rejected the grant of\ninjunction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Conclusion\"><\/span>Conclusion<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p> In the Trademark dispute between PhonePe and BharatPe, as we discussed above, the Court ruled that there was no case for permit of provisional injunction against the defendants. The Court observed that except for the common word &#8220;Pe&#8221;, it cannot be established that the marks &#8220;BharatPe\u201d and \u201cPhonePe\u201d are confusingly similar. Excluding the word \u201cPe&#8221;, these are two different words altogether with no commonality whatsoever. This judgment gives out as a primer on all things on Trademark Law and demonstrates other legal principles, especially on Trademark Laws. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"text-left\"><b>Read our article<\/b>:<mark style=\"background: #fffd03 !important;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/swaritadvisors.com\/blog\/drawbacks-of-trademark-hearing-through-video-conferencing\/\">Drawbacks Associated with Trademark Hearing through Video Conferencing\n<\/a><\/mark><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a recent Trademark dispute between PhonePe Pvt. Ltd. (Petitioner) and Ezy Services &amp; Anr. (Defendant) on April 15, 2021, the judge of the Delhi High Court comprising of Hon\u2019ble Justice C. Hari Shankar, pronounced a prominent judgement in a commercial suit filed decided a provisional application between BharatPe and PhonePe regarding whether the use [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":6463,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[72],"tags":[721],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/swaritadvisors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6458"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/swaritadvisors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/swaritadvisors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swaritadvisors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swaritadvisors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6458"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/swaritadvisors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6458\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7379,"href":"https:\/\/swaritadvisors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6458\/revisions\/7379"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swaritadvisors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/swaritadvisors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swaritadvisors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swaritadvisors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}