PhonePe withdraws petition against BharatPe's Postpe, to file fresh suit

Fintech major PhonePe has withdrawn its petition against BharatPe's Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) Postpe platform which had alleged violation of PhonePe's trademark and said it will file a fresh suit.

PhonePe had approached the Bombay High Court seeking an injunction to restrain Resilient Innovations, which operates BharatPe, from misusing PhonePe's registered trademarks by using and promoting the marks 'PostPe'/'postpe', PhonePe said in a statement on late Friday night.

During the hearing, the Court observed that the mark PostPe adopted by Resilient Innovations is so phonetically, structurally and visually similar to PhonePe mark that it also thought that PostPe/postpe is a natural evolution of the word PhonePe and emanated from PhonePe, the statement added.

"However, to address certain observations made by the Court in the pleadings filed by PhonePe, the suit was withdrawn with liberty to file a fresh suit challenging the adoption of mark PostPe/postpe by Resilient Innovations," PhonePe said.

It added that while allowing the withdrawal of the suit and keeping the rights and contentions of the parties open, the 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," PhonePe noted.

When contacted, a BharatPe spokesperson said the company does not want to comment on any part of Friday's proceedings in the Bombay High Court that have not been recorded in the order passed.

"In order to maintain the dignity of the legal process, we would await receipt of the order passed by the Hon'ble Bombay High Court yesterday...The bottom line remains that PhonePe has withdrawn the suit it filed against our use of postpe.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," the spokesperson added.