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PayPal Sues Pandora Over 'Patently Unlawful' Logo (billboard.com)
PayPal has filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against Pandora, arguing that the company's minimalist logo "dilutes the distinctiveness" of its own branding. "Element by element and in overall impression, the similarities between the logos are striking, obvious, and patently unlawful," the lawsuit alleges. Billboard reports: In October 2016, Pandora announced it was redesigning its logo from a thin, serifed "P" into the chunky, sans serifed "P" that it is today. The color scheme was also changed from midnight blue to a softer shade of blue. By comparison, PayPal's logo, active since 2014, also features a minimalist-looking "P" in a sans serif font and sporting a blue color palette. PayPal's mark actually consists of two overlapping and slanted "Ps," whereas Pandora keeps it to one. Both P's lack a hole. It is because of these similarities that PayPal believes customers of both companies are unable to distinguish the two, and that many are complaining about inadvertently opening Pandora instead of PayPal on their smartphones. The lawsuit includes various screen grabs, primarily from Twitter, of people noting the similarities. PayPal's lawsuit also points out Pandora's current struggles as a brand, saying that since it is primarily an ad-supported service, it "has no obvious path to profitability," especially given "overwhelming competition" from the likes of Spotify and Apple Music. The suit alleges that Pandora purposely "latched itself on to the increasingly popular" PayPal logo look-and-feel as part of its efforts to reverse its fortunes.
I don't think that's quite fair.
In text:
PayPal has two capital Ps, on slant, overlapping with one slightly further down and to the right. The P's font is most notable for lacking the "hole" in the letter. Each P is a distinct shade of blue, plus a third shade of blue for the overlap.
Pandora has a single capital P, upright. It is a particular shade of blue. The font's most noticeable feature is the lack of a hole in the P.
There's a lot more similarities than it being the letter P. To be fair, there are also more differences than it being 1 vs. 2 Ps, although the other ones are fairly subtle -- the lack of slant, the particular shade of blue (Pandora's is close to one of PayPal's), the way PayPal's P's have no corners while Pandora's do, and way Pandora's "stem" is noticeably short.
Here's my lay assessment which is definitely not informed by actual trademark law, just me trying to apply common sense to the idea behind trademarks:
- I do think I could be confused by these marks if I wasn't specifically looking at them.
- I really doubt this was intentional. This looks like a mistake that could happen innocently.
- I think PayPal's mark has enough elements to be distinctive, clearly. Pandora's would be stretching it a bit even if PayPal was not already there, although stylized single-letter marks are not a new phenomenon.
- I'm not sure I would feel the same way if Pandora were first and PayPal the supposed infringer, which is an interesting asymmetry that I'm not sure can actually hold up in any court of law. The thing is that PayPal's mark has strictly more elements to distinguish it. Pandora looks like part of the PayPal mark taken out of context.
I use neither of these services regularly, but have used both in the past. No particular loyalties.
Sure, they're not identical, but I can see how someone not in the know could be confused by it. Pandora have been around long enough to be well aware of what the PayPal logo looks like, colours used, etc. In fact, had the "P" been black or some other colour, PayPal may not have even cared.
They're also required to protect their Trademark, or they could potentially lose it. So I'd say cut PayPal some slack.
Not a case of "rounded corners" here.
In Australia PayPal's double-P is registered in classes 9, 35, 36, 42. Search
Pandora does not seem to have registered their "P" in Australia, but the name "Pandora" is registered in classes 9, 38, and 41. Search
They overlap in "Class 9 Application software", so if Pandora registered the "P" mark here in the same classes there may be a clash.
Patent litigation: A doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction... in which everyone seems willing to push the button
So did the Catholic American government trying to fuck up their political structure by installing Bin Laden, then again multiple times after 9/11.
Considering the US (and others, to be fair) sticks it's nose where it doesn't belong - just because it wasn't pro democracy... I'm surprised there hasn't been an organized military response by half the planet