Kenya’s leading mobile services operator Safaricom has sued its rival Airtel for infringing on its M-Pesa trademark by including its symbols on its outdoor advertisement.
Safaricom has filed pictures in court as evidence of Airtel Kenya’s usage of signs that are identical to two of its registered M-Pesa trademarks for the promotion and marketing its mobile cash transfer service.
“Airtel has infringed and continues infringing on the plaintiff’s trademark number 60093 by printing and advertising on retail outlets, boards and plates for the promotion and marketing of its Airtel money,” says Safaricom in court documents.
The mobile firm accuses Airtel of riding on the goodwill and extensive market share of M-Pesa, which has over the years grown and taken a commanding lead over Airtel Money, Business Daily reports.
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Safaricom’s in-house lawyer Daniel Ndaba says that one of the infringed M-Pesa logos was registered as trademark number 60093 for use in respect of advertising and business management administration while the second M-Pesa logo registered as trademark 62612 is for use in respect of clothing, footwear and headgear.
The 60093 trademark has a phone with a note on it between the letters M and Pesa of the logo while the 62612 trademark has the words joined with a hyphen. The two M-Pesa logos are used for branding of the 85,756 retail outlets that provide Safaricom’s mobile money transfer services.
Mr Ndaba said the logo had been infringed in 69 outlets across the country. On May 19, Airtel wrote to Safaricom claiming that it was not aware of the infringement of registered trademarks but indicated that it would undertake investigations and revert on the same in four days. Airtel later wrote an email to Safaricom seeking a way forward on the shared agents branding on May 27.
The conflict comes barely a year after Safaricom was forced by the Competition Authority of Kenya to open up its M-Pesa agents network to rivals in a bid to ease their market penetration.
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