Enlarge (credit: PayPal v Pandora)
Some heavy tech hitters have been in the spotlight lately for haggling over their trademarks. Ars recently reported about Google, which successfully defended its mark amid accusations that the term “google” is no longer eligible for legal protection because it has become too generic of a word for “searching the Web.”
Now comes two more companies battling over a different area of trademark law. PayPal is suing music-streaming company Pandora on accusations that Pandora’s latest logo looks a lot like PayPal’s and hence causes consumer confusion. Pandora launched the new logo in October as part of its campaign to turn its free listeners into paid subscribers.
“Pandora’s recent adoption of a new ‘P’ logo, which is unlawfully similar to PayPal’s logo, threatens the interests of PayPal’s customers and disrupts their user experience. PayPal brings this action to remedy the harm Pandora is causing to the PayPal user experience and the PayPal brand,” the payment company said in its federal intellectual property lawsuit filed in New York federal court.
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