Madras High Court dismisses PhonePe appeal against DigiPe in Trademark Infringement

Madras High Court dismisses PhonePe appeal against DigiPe in Trademark Infringement

Informs that the plaintiff is not the innovator of the mark ‘Pe’

The Madras High Court has 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.

A bench of Chief Justice SV Gangapurwala and Justice PD Audikesavalu refused to interfere with the single-judge’s June order to grant PhonePe an injunction.

The division bench held that PhonePe failed to show that its Unified Payments Interface (UPI) app and the DigiPe app catered to a similar category of customers and that the word 'Pe' could lead to confusion.

The court stated, “The defendants have contended that the DigiPe application is not useful for individual customers and is confined to merchant establishments. Their target customers are entirely different from the customers of the plaintiff. 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 judges further remarked that the original suit filed by PhonePe against DigiPe was ready for trial and the former could adduce evidence during trial to prove its case. They added that PhonePe had taken varied stands before different high courts, particularly over the use of the word ‘Pe’ in copyright infringement.

The court’s order read, “The stand taken before the Registrar of Trademark was 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 admitted that CardPe was the prior user and adopter of the ‘Pe’ formative mark. The plaintiff is not the innovator of ‘Pe’. The single judge has properly marshaled the same.”