Top court refuses to entertain BharatPe's petition against PhonePe

Last October, PhonePe sought Bombay HC injunction to restrain BharatPe from misusing PhonePe's registered trademarks by using and promoting the marks 'PostPe'/'postpe'

Walmart-owned digital payments firm PhonePe said on Tuesday that the Supreme Court of India has declined to entertain the Special Leave Petition filed by Resilient Innovations (BharatPe) challenging the judgement of the Bombay High Court. The Bengaluru-based firm said the Supreme Court observed during the course of hearing that the Petitioner/Resilient Innovations were not prejudiced in any manner by the impugned judgments of the Bombay High Court and the underlying reasons cited to file the SLP did not merit the intervention of the Hon’ble Supreme Court.  

“During the course of hearing, the Supreme Court also observed that PhonePe cannot be left remediless or without any recourse and hence the SLP was dismissed in limine (on the threshold). This SLP was yet another attempt by Resilient Innovation to delay the proceedings in the legal actions initiated by PhonePe with respect to the usage of the marks ‘PostPe’ / ‘postpe’,” said a PhonePe spokesperson. “PhonePe is determined to protect and secure the rights of PhonePe and the value of its brand. The dismissal of the said SLP by the Supreme Court cleared the way for PhonePe to proceed further with its suit at the Bombay High Court.”

Last October, PhonePe approached the Bombay High Court seeking an injunction to restrain its rival Resilient Innovations (BharatPe) from misusing PhonePe's registered trademarks by using and promoting the marks 'PostPe' / 'postpe'. PhonePe had said that during the hearing, Hon'ble 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.

However, to address certain observations made by the Court in the pleadings filed by PhonePe, the Suit was withdrawn with liberty to file a fresh Suit challenging the adoption of mark PostPe/postpe by Resilient Innovations.

Last June, PhonePe and BharatPe went for a full trial over the use of the word ‘Pe’ (pronounced as pay and means ‘on’ in Hindi) after nearly two years of court proceedings. PhonePe had filed a lawsuit against BharatPe claiming trademark rights over the suffix and that full trial is still going on. At that point also it had withdrawn the injunction plea in the Delhi High Court and instead sought quick disposal of the main lawsuit.

In November last year, PhonePe said that the Delhi High Court has dismissed the petitions filed by Resilient Innovations seeking cancellation and removal of entries pertaining to some of PhonePe’s registered trademarks from the Register of Trade Marks.

Last year, Resilient Innovations Pvt Ltd (owner and user of the 'BharatPe' and 'PostPe' marks) had filed six different petitions before the Delhi High Court seeking cancellation and removal of the entry pertaining to some of PhonePe’s registered trademarks from the Register of Trade Marks, wherein it also sought interim relief against use of such registered trademarks of PhonePe. 

"The petition before the Supreme Court was on a question of law pertaining to withdrawal of suits and not on the merits of PhonePe's trademark infringement claim. The Supreme Court was of the opinion that since the Single Judges order of the Bombay High Court adequately protects the interest of Resilient, it was not necessary to adjudicate on the question of law raised in the petition," said a BharatPe spokesperson on Wednesday. "We are committed to defending any claim for trademark infringement which may be brought by PhonePe before the Hon'ble Bombay High Court or any forum."