Having withdrawn its earlier injunction against BharatPe for the alleged misuse of the 'Pe' suffix, Flipkart-owned PhonePe is expected to file a fresh legal suit against the latter with the Bombay High Court this week in the same matter, two people aware of the discussion confirmed told Mint on condition of anonymity.
PhonePe which claims to have rights over the ‘Pe’ suffix as a part of its registered trademark. The company had filed an injunction that sought to restrain Resilient Innovations Pvt. Ltd., parent of BharatPe, from allegedly "misusing" the ‘Pe’ suffix as a part of its newly launched ‘buy now pay later’ product, ‘PostPe’.
The first hearing on PhonePe’s injunction plea was heard by the Bombay High Court on October 22, following which PhonePe requested the court that it would like to withdraw the injunction and file a fresh suit instead.
“To address certain observations made by the Court in the pleadings filed by PhonePe, the suit was withdrawn with liberty to file a fresh suit challenging the adoption of mark ‘PostPe’/’postpe’ by Resilient Innovations. Accordingly, while allowing the withdrawal of the suit and keeping the rights and contentions of the parties open, the Hon'ble Court granted PhonePe the liberty to file a fresh suit. We will, accordingly, file a fresh suit and continue to ardently oppose the use of the 'PostPe' / 'postpe' marks,” said PhonePe in a response to Mint’s queries on Saturday.
This isn’t the first legal tussle, both firms have engaged in over the ‘Pe’ suffix. In June, PhonePe withdrew its injunction plea with the Delhi High Court and proceeded with a full trial against BharaPe that very month, for using the ‘Pe’ suffix in its brand name.
The next hearing in the Delhi High Court is expected to be around December, the persons cited above confirmed to Mint.
“We do not want to comment on any part of October 22 proceedings in the Bombay High Court that have not been recorded in the order passed.The bottomline remains that PhonePe has withdrawn the suit it filed against our use of ‘PostPe’. Needless to say, we will continue to strongly defend any legal action that PhonePe threatens to institute against us,” said a BharatPe spokesperson.
Both firms have been arguing against the use of ‘Pe’ since 2018, even before the lawsuits.
