UK fintech compelled to defend its trademark once more, simply months after preventing off Klarna.
Picture supply: Luke Massie/VibePay.
Lower than a 12 months after VibePay CEO and founder Luke Massie defended his fintech’s model towards Klarna, now Massie is on the defensive as soon as once more, this time towards $8bn Japanese conglomerate Rakuten.
On Sunday Massie’s legal professionals despatched a stop and desist to Rakuten’s messaging app Viber simply days after its launch of funds in Europe underneath the Viber Pay model.
Within the letter, seen by AltFi, VibePay’s legal professionals wrote that the usage of Viber Pay as a model would “danger complicated and deceptive the general public into believing that the providers equipped by your consumer are from, related to, authorised by, or endorsed by, our consumer, when they aren’t.”
VibePay has additionally filed an utility to have Viber’s “Viber Pay” trademark (filed previous to Viber Pay’s launch in 2021) be invalidated by the EU’s Mental Property Workplace as a result of similarities with its personal trademark.
“Viber has made it fairly clear that they wish to convey the product to the UK, we simply assume there’s clear confusion for the top client,” Massie instructed AltFi.
Certainly, on Twitter VibePay clients had already began reaching out to the CEO in confusion over the Viber Pay model, with one consumer asking: “Absolutely @Viber cannot use the @VibePay model?”
Viber is considered one of Europe’s largest messaging apps, with round 250m month-to-month lively customers, and is a subsidiary of Rakuten, the eCommerce and on-line retailing group listed on the Tokyo Inventory Alternate at an $8bn valuation.
Final week Viber’s CEO Ofir Eyal introduced the launch of Viber Pay in an interview with TechCrunch, telling the publication that Viber Pay’s first market could be Greece, a “purple nation” (the color of Viber’s app) the place 91 per cent of smartphones have Viber put in.
“We have began with the launches in Greece and Germany and plan to increase the service worldwide,” Viber added in a LinkedIn submit.
Viber Pay, constructed with the assistance of London-based funds supplier Rapyd, is a part of a plan to aggressively shift Viber into being a messaging and funds app, a transfer which might see it instantly compete with VibePay.
For Massie, the announcement was a shock, particularly given the founder had spoken at “nice lengths” with Viber’s CEO Eyal and Viber’s VP Head of Fintech Ritesh Shah concerning the potential for trademark infringement, but in Massie’s understanding Viber “determined to launch regardless… a transparent infringement and I wish to do what I can to guard our place, towards one other enormous organisation.”
Certainly this isn’t the primary time the founder had been compelled to defend his emblems.
In 2021 VibePay took authorized motion towards Klarna’s plans to launch its Vibe rewards programme right here within the UK, which finally resulted within the purchase now pay later big dropping the model identify.
On the time there was the suggestion that Klarna may look to purchase VibePay with a purpose to purchase the trademark, and Massie hinted that an acquisition could be the one method Viber would be capable of proceed utilizing his trademark.
“I am unable to see the place they go together with this now… we had been discussing with Klarna them probably shopping for VibePay and integrating it, and that is the place this may occasionally find yourself. Viva might need to both cease utilizing [the brand] or buy us, as a result of there’s plenty of similarities with our merchandise,” added Massie.
In response to AltFi’s request for remark, a Viber spokesperson stated: “Viber was shocked to study that Vibe Pay Restricted filed an opposition on the UK Mental Property Workplace difficult Viber’s trademark utility.”
“Viber has been being trademarked for over a decade and as Viber’s hundreds of thousands of UK and Europe customers are conscious, Viber has a formidable repute within the UK, the EU, and worldwide because it was based in 2010 previous to the existence of Vibe Pay Restricted.”
The spokesperson described Viber Pay as “a pure evolution of Viber’s fintech journey that began greater than 5 years in the past, previous to Vibe Pay Restricted’s existence” and added that Viber “will proceed to roll out the service [Viber Pay] to extra international locations”.
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