Today, On 24th December, The Delhi High Court restrained the use of the name ‘PhonePey Loan’ in a trademark case filed by PhonePe. The court also ordered GoDaddy to take down the ‘PhonePey Loan’ website. PhonePe raised concerns that the name was too similar to its trademark. The court’s decision is to avoid any confusion among users.
New Delhi: The Delhi High Court issued an injunction against financial company AGF Finlease India, preventing it from using the name “PhonePey Loan” for its digital lending agency, as it was found to be prima facie deceptively similar to the trademark of PhonePe, a payments gateway owned by Walmart.
During a preliminary hearing, Justice Mini Pushkarna stated that PhonePe, which filed the lawsuit against AGF Finlease, had established a prima facie case for an interim injunction.
The Court ruled,
“Prima facie has been made out for the grant of injunction. Accordingly, until the next hearing date, Defendants 1 and 2 are restrained from selling or offering to sell Phone Pe, Phone Pe Loan, or any other mark that infringes on the PhonePe trademark,”
The Court also instructed Domain Name Registrar (DNR) GoDaddy to remove the “PhonePey Loan” website.
Additionally, social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram were directed to take down posts that infringe on the PhonePe trademark.
Advocate Sidharth Chopra, representing PhonePe, argued that “PhonePey Loan” is deceptively similar to PhonePe. He further alleged that agents from AGF Finlease misrepresented themselves as being from PhonePe’s loan department.
In response, AGF Finlease’s counsel claimed that they were using “PhonePey” and not “PhonePe.”
Read Also: PhonePe vs. DigiPe | Supreme Court Rejects PhonePe’s Trademark Infringement Claim
However, the Court found this argument unsatisfactory and granted an interim injunction in favor of PhonePe.
Shilpa Gupta, Deepika Pokharia, and Naman Tandon from Saikrishna & Associates also represented PhonePe.
PhonePe is a popular app in India that lets users do financial transactions like sending money, paying bills, recharging phones, and shopping online. It was started in 2015 by Sameer Nigam, Rahul Chari, and Burzin Engineer. PhonePe works on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and is available as a mobile app for both Android and iOS.
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