Madras High Court dismisses PhonePe appeal in trademark infringement case against DigiPe

The Madras High Court on Tuesday dismissed a batch of appeals filed by digital payments firm PhonePe that challenged a single-judge order refusing to restrain DigiPe from using its logo in a trademark infringement suit filed by the former..A Bench of Chief Justice SV Gangapurwala and PD Audikesavalu refused to interfere with the single-judge’s order passed in June that had refused to grant PhonePe an injunction..The Division Bench held that PhonePe had failed to show that its Unified Payments Interface (UPI) app and the DigiPe app catered to a similar category of customers and that the use of the word 'Pe' by DigiPe could lead to confusion.“The defendants have contended that the “DigiPe” application is not useful for any individual customers and the same is confined to merchant establishments and that their target customers are entirely different to the customers of the plaintiff and therefore there is no question of confusion, the defendants on their website have categorically stated that DigiPe App caters to the needs of both merchants and customers,” the Court said.Besides, the Court said that the original suit filed by PhonePe against DigiPe was ready for trial and that the former could adduce evidence during trial to prove its case. .It also noted that PhonePe had taken different stands before different High Courts in similar cases of copyright infringement, particularly over the use of the word ‘Pe.’“On the given facts and circumstances of the case, it is difficult to reconcile the plaintiff's stand taken before different courts. The stand taken before the Registrar of Trademark was absolutely different and not coherent with the stand taken in the present matter. The stand taken before the Delhi High Court while litigating against “BharatPe” was also completely different. The plaintiff in the said case admitted that “CardPe” was the prior user and adopter of the “Pe” formative mark. The Plaintiff is not the innovator of the “Pe” formative mark. The learned Single Judge has properly marshalled the same,” the order said..Bombay High Court refuses interim relief to PhonePe over trademark infringement allegations against Postpe.Senior Advocate Sathish Parasaran and Advocates P Giridharan, H Siddharth and Siddharth Govind appeared for PhonePe.Advocate R Sathish Kumar appeared for DigiPe..[Read Order]