There's being petty and then there's PayPal latest trademark infringement complaint. The global payments company has filed a notice of opposition in the Indian Trademark office against Paytm for the use of a similar blue two-tone colour scheme. This was first reported by Bar& Bench. PayPal in its complaint said that Paytm's logo is "deceptively and confusing similar " to its own logo. "The Applicant (Paytm) has slavishly adopted the two-tone colour scheme of the Opponent (PayPal) in its entirety. The first syllable in each mark is in dark blue colour and the second syllable in a light blue color," the complaint read. "Further, both marks begin with the term "PAY" which consumers tend to remember more than the second syllable, and the marks are similar in length. These similarities cause a likelihood of confusion in the aggregate, especially considering the fame of the Opponent's earlier trade mark," PayPal added. Hindustan Times points out that if PayPal wins this trademark battle, Paytm will have to change the colour scheme of its logo, making a significant dent in the company’s identity. Following the demonetization of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes, Paytm has been advertising its product to help Indians adopt digital payments. Earlier this month,Paytm announced on its blog that it now has 1 million merchants. According to the company: “The merchant network grew steadily from 37K in January’16 to 500K in September’16. The next milestone arrived on 25th November, 2016 when the 1 millionth offline merchant was on-boarded.” In addition, the…
