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In the ongoing tussle between PhonePe and BharatPe over the alleged misuse of the term ‘Pe’, BharatPe has said that by withdrawing its injunction from the Bombay High Court PhonePe has given up its claim for exclusivity over the word by consent.

In the court order dated October 22, the Bombay High Court noted that PhonePe has no registration of the word ‘Pe’, instead it has a label with the devanagari word Pe. BusinessLine has reviewed a copy of the order.

“If the plaintiff (PhonePe) has no exclusivity over the mark ‘Pe’, I do not see how it can claim this exclusivity indirectly in paragraph after paragraph of the plaint. It is one thing to say that the defendants’ (BharatPe) mark, taken as a whole, is close to the PostPe, also taken as a whole.

“It is quite another to take an element of each, which cannot possibly be the subject of exclusivity, and then claim injunctions on that basis,” the court added.

‘An infringement’

PhonePe has claimed that while the word ‘Phone’ is not unique, the word ‘Pe’ is a distinctive and memorable part of its name. It then claimed that use of the word ‘Pe’ in BharatPe’s new ‘buy now pay later’ offering PostPe is an infringement.

In response to this, the court said that “if the law is that the mark must be taken as a whole, then one must look at PhonePe as a whole and then set it against PostPe. Then one would test for visual, structural and phonetic similarity.”

‘To file a fresh suit’

In a statement released by PhonePe last week, the company said that “to address certain observations made by the Court in the pleadings filed by PhonePe, the suit was withdrawn with liberty to file a fresh suit challenging the adoption of mark PostPe/postpe by Resilient Innovations. Accordingly, while allowing the withdrawal of the suit and keeping the rights and contentions of the parties open, the Hon’ble 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.”

The PhonePe spokesperson had earlier also claimed that the “hon’ble Court observed that the mark PostPe adopted by Resilient Innovations is so phonetically, structurally and visually similar to PhonePe mark that he also thought that PostPe/postpe is a natural evolution of the word PhonePe and emanated from PhonePe.”

In an updated statement released by BharatPe on Monday, the company challenged the above statement by PhonePe and said: “We were rather surprised by the statements made by spokespersons of PhonePe on Friday on the outcome of Friday’s proceedings in the Bombay High Court, which did not reflect the correct outcome of the Friday’s proceedings in Court. We had earlier refrained from commenting on the order of the Hon’ble Bombay Court because the actual wording of the actual order would demonstrate how misleading PhonePe’s earlier statements to the press were.”

“We will bring such misconduct by PhonePe to the attention of the Hon’ble Bombay High Court as well. We are happy that BharatPe’s (Resilient’s) stand is again vindicated regarding its use of PE.

“We will continue to take all legal remedies in law, not only to defend ourselves against any ill-conceived actions taken by PhonePe, but also to protect our rights in law,” the BharatPe spokesperson added.

This is not the first legal tussle between BharatPe and PhonePe over trademark infringement. Earlier in 2019, PhonePe filed a case against BharatPe in the Delhi High Court over the alleged misuse of the suffix ‘Pe.’ Later, in April 2021, PhonePe’s plea to issue an injunction against BharatPe was rejected by the Delhi High Court. Following that, PhonePe appealed the Delhi High Court’s order, but later withdrew it in June.

Cryptocurrency exchanges in the country are moving beyond trading services to include other options such as lending, fixed deposit and SIPs.

Exchanges such as ZebPay, Coin DCX, Bitbns and Vauld provide options for lending of crypto deposits that enable users earn interest.

“The crypto ecosystem essentially has all the products that the equity ecosystem has. We have been trying to make our users aware that they don’t need to go in just for crypto trading, but can go for products that suit their risk profile,” said Gaurav Dahake, Founder and CEO, Bitbns. The company offers fixed deposits as well as an SIP option called Bitdroplet to customers, and Dahake said there is ample investor interest in them. “Over 1.25 lakh people have explored the fixed income plan or fixed deposit product since it went live over a year ago. Typically, the average ticket size is ₹3,000,” he said. The SIP has over 2.5 lakh active folios, he said.

Two types of customers

Darshan Bathija, CEO, Vauld, said the company onboards two types of customers – those who are keen to buy and sell crypto – and those who want to hold capital for the medium to long term and earn interest on their deposits.

Over the next 12 months, the company plans to add more touchpoints of banking into the crypto world such as account issuing, cards, and get bank accounts deeply integrated into the Vauld platform.

Bathija told BusinessLine that licensing and regulatory permissions vary from country to country.

“We are a licensed applicant in Singapore, and it allows us to issue accounts ourselves. In India, we are going through the partnership route, looking to partner with banks and PPI route.”

Explaining the plans for the card, he said the customer can use the Vauld card at any merchant outlet and while the merchant will receive money in INR through the card network, Vauld would debit the customer’s balance in bitcoin. “It feels like they are spending their crypto, we are making this a more spendable asset,” he said.

Meanwhile, CoinSwitch Kuber, which recently raised $260 million in Series C funding round, plans to utilise parts of the launch of new crypto products and services such as lending and staking, among others, to enable users benefit the most out of this decentralised technology.

New asset classes

Ashish Singhal, co-founder and CEO, CoinSwitch Kuber, said the company also wants to diversify and add new asset classes such as mutual funds and insurance and create a financial well-being platform.

Coin DCX also has a lending option on its platform that enables users earn interest on their cryptocurrencies. Similarly, Zeb Pay’s lending platform also enables users lend the company their cryptos for either an open term or a fixed term.