According to the recent report by journalist Rohan Pearce, New Payment Platform Australia (NPPA) filed a lawsuit against the Ripple Labs, a recognized blockchain firm over the use of its “PayID”. The NPPA filed a suit in the US Federal Court.
To make you aware the NPPA is an association of financial institutions in Australia that includes every important bank of the country. As per the report, the documents of courts are still not made public but the ground of suit is the infringement of intellectual property rights concerned with the mark of Ripple’s PayID payment settlement system.
In addition, NPPA regulates the settlement network in Australia and hence enables its users of different financial institutions to receive and send the payment on time. It is mutually accepted by 13 banks including the Reserve Bank of Australia, ING, HSBC, Citi, and ANZ. Moreover, most of the crypto trading platform accepts fiat through PayID.
The NPAA made a statement talking about the lawsuit that “to protect Australian from being misled by the launch in Australia of a cryptocurrency-based payment service using NPP Australia’s PayID service name and brand.”
Who registered the trademark first?
It is true that NPPA holds the trademark rights over “Pay ID” (with space) since March 2017. This Pay ID allowed its users to connect easily and helped the account to remember some relevant information like an email address or phone number. With these small chunks of information, their PayIDs were sent to an entity from whom they had to collect or send money.
In October 2017, the NPPA made an effort to file an application for the registration of the trademark of “PayID” (without space) but unfortunately, the application got lapsed in the year 2018 and since then it was not registered ever.
Further, on June 17, 2020, Ripple labs file for two “PayID” trademarks in the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Then on July 24, 2020, the NPPA again filed a new application for the registration of the same trademark and it’s still pending.
As far as Ripple is considered it has a partnership with many members but this trademark is one that makes it a leading player. The Open Payments Coalition site mentioned, “the content on this website was developed by Ripple, as an early adopter of PayID, in collaboration with the Open Payments Coalition.”
Talking about the potential loss and scams the Australian company added that both have identical names and mainly the same function. It also stressed that “PayID is subject to a comprehensive governance and liability framework and robust privacy and security controls.”
Let’s see the hon’ble court pass judgement on who’s favor.