It apparently isn’t enough for PayPal to accuse Pandora of copying its logo, the online payment platform is attempting to humiliate the streaming music service and its business model.

PayPal recently sued Pandora for trademark infringement, claiming that Pandora’s Oct. 2016 logo redesign is just too similar to it’s own double blue “P” logo.

According to the lawsuit [PDF], filed last week in a Manhattan federal court, Pandora’s new logo interferes with PayPal’s distinct branding and obstructs users ability to easily use the app.

“The frictionless user experience for PayPal customers starts with PayPal’s famous ‘P’ logo,” the suit states. “One critically important function of the PayPal logo is to stand out on the crowded screens of customers’ smartphones and tablets, where the logo guides customers quickly and surely to the PayPal payments platform.”

This all changed in Oct. 2016 when Pandora “interfered dramatically” with PayPal users’ experience by rolling out a new logo of its own.

“Element by element and in overall impression, the similarities between the logos are striking, obvious, and patently unlawful,” PayPal claims in the complaint, noting that the new logo not only resembles, but openly mimics the PayPal logo.

As you can see below, both logos contain a block-style “P” with no “counter” or hole in the top part of the letter and a blue-color range. However, they do have some subtle differences: While PayPal’s logo contains two slightly italicized letters, Pandora’s logo is a single block letter.

Previously, Pandora’s logo was a large blue “P” with a traditional hole at the top — surrounded by a similar blue border against a while background. PayPal claims this logo looked nothing like its own.

When looking to revamp its logo, PayPal says Pandora considered more than 1,000 options, but deliberately chose one that was “obviously too similar to PayPal’s” and “blatantly pirates the goodwill developed by PayPal in the PayPal logo.”

PayPal appears to go out of its way to abase Pandora, claiming that the music service changed its logo “as part of an effort to overcome serious commercial challenges that threaten its very survival.”

Twisting the knife, PayPal mentions that, since most Pandora users aren’t paying for the service, it “has no obvious path to profitability.”

PayPal contends that since the new logo’s launch, customers have become confused, frustrated, and delayed in being able to locate the PayPal payment platform from their phones.

“Without any prompting from PayPal, consumers themselves have publicly complained about the impact on their user experience since the launch of the Pandora logo last fall,” the complaint states, adding that the new logo had blurred the uniqueness of PayPal’s brand.

The lawsuit includes several examples of users expressing confusion over social media after the logo was introduced.

Several customers claimed to have tried to send money through the Pandora app, while others questioned whether PayPal had purchased Pandora.

 

PayPal says that when it first began receiving complaints from customers, the company contacted Pandora. However, Pandora did nothing to revise the logo, leaving PayPal with no choice but to file a lawsuit.

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