Thread by @finshots

Why are PhonePe and BharatPe Battling over ‘Pe’?

A thread. 👇(1/n)

Copyright laws are a tricky business. And naming your business similar to an existing big player is like asking for trouble.

BharatPe and PhonePe are at crossroads over the usage of the suffix ‘Pe’ - yes, a monosyllable in Devanagri (Hindi script) hanging at the end.

And that 'Pe' is a very subtle equivalent of the English word 'Pay', befitting for a digital payments platform.

This little dispute here traces back to 2018 when PhonePe served a notice to BharatPe, asking it to get rid of that ‘Pe’ in its name.

Here’s how BharatPe reacted - it changed its logo and colour scheme.

But PhonePe thought, ‘Not cool!’

Then in 2019, PhonePe appealed at the Delhi High Court, with the argument essentially being - ‘Phone isn’t the real deal in our brand name, ‘Pe’ is. We can’t have another brand take that away from us’.

That plea was turned down, and so was another, filed with the Bombay High Court recently.

But then this month, BharatPe launched this buy-now-pay-later service called PostPe.

And here’s the twist in the plot -

This time around, BharatPe filed a petition with the Delhi High Court for canceling whatever trademark registrations of ‘Pe’ are held by PhonePe.

BharatPe says that you can’t monopolize over a common Hindi word like ‘Pe’ in India, it goes against the larger interest. And that's the problem, you see - courts say that it's impossible to trademark the word 'Pe' and just exclude people from using it.

Well, it would be interesting to see how this battle unfolds. Let us know your thoughts.

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