BharatPe, PhonePe settle 5-year long trademark disputes related to ‘Pe’ suffix

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BharatPe Group and PhonePe Group have “amicably settled” all long-standing legal disputes pertaining to the use of the trademark with the suffix ‘Pe’, the companies said in a joint release.

The fintechs have been involved in a long-drawn legal dispute across multiple courts for the past five years. The settlement will put an end to all open judicial proceedings. “This is a positive development for the industry. I appreciate the maturity and professionalism shown by the managements of both sides, working closely to resolve all outstanding legal issues and moving ahead to focus their energy and resources in building robust digital payment ecosystems,” said Rajnish Kumar, Chairman of BharatPe Board.

“As a next step, parties have already taken steps to withdraw all oppositions against each other in the trademark registry which will help them to proceed with the registration of their respective marks,” the release said.

Further, both entities will undertake other necessary steps to comply with the obligations under the settlement agreement in respect of all cases before the Delhi and Bombay High Courts.

Sameer Nigam, Founder and CEO PhonePe said, “’I am glad that we have reached an amicable resolution in this matter. This outcome will benefit both companies to move forward and focus our collective energy on growing the Indian fintech industry as a whole”.

BharatPe, brand name of Resilient Innovations, was founded in 2018 when it launched India’s first UPI interoperable QR code for zero MDR payment acceptance service. It also operates the card acceptance terminal — BharatPe Swipe, and has 1.3 crore registered merchants across over 450 cities. It processes over 37 crore UPI transactions per month with annualised Transaction Processed Value (TPV) of ₹1.7-lakh crore.

PhonePe Group’s digital payments app PhonePe was launched in August 2016. The platform has 53.5 crore registered users and a digital payments acceptance network of 3.9 crore merchants. It processes over 25.5 crore daily transactions with an annualised TPV of $1.5 trillion.