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One91 Communications Ltd’s application seeking a trademark for ‘Paytm’ get objection by International online payment giants Paypal Inc.

The application for trademark rights was filed in July 2012 and advertised on 18th July this year, which opened a four month window where the application could be opposed. Interestingly, PayPal accusations came on 18th November, that’s the last day of the four-month given period.

In its notice, PayPal said that Paytm is
“deceptively and confusingly similar to PayPal” and follows a similar colour scheme, which is likely to cause confusion among consumers, they also said Paytm “slavishly adopted the two-tone blue colour scheme” of PayPal in its entirety. “The first syllable in each mark is in dark blue colour and the second syllable in a light blue colour,”.

There are more similarities between the two giants if we get into details, which makes PayPal believe that Paytm had an intend to leverage the fame and goodwill of PayPal and use it to their advantage.

Rahul Dev, international patent attorney said
"It is surprising that PayPal only responded on the last day of the four-month period given to oppose the application”.

It is difficult to digest that a leading global brand (with a battery of trademark lawyers worldwide) like PayPal waited till the very last day to file for trademark opposition.

The industry believes this to be a calculated strike from PayPal, looking to reduce some of the momentum Paytm has gained since the demonetisation.

Demonetisation has brought these payment gateways to the limelight and the value of the brand name has shot up, he said. Companies like PayU may also face the same resistance when they go for trademark registration, he added.

Demonetisation has definitely led to a cash crunch and prompted a large number of people to increasingly use digital wallets such as Paytm.

Paytm, which claims to have 164 million users on its platform, registered a surge in traffic after the government move and says it is recording 7 million transactions a day.