PayPal sues Pandora over the letter 'P'
PayPayl’s logo, left, and Pandora’s logo. Images from court documents.
PayPal claims in a trademark infringement and dilution suit that Pandora’s blue, capital “P” logo, adopted in October, “openly mimics” PayPal’s double P logo.
The suit (PDF), filed last Friday in Manhattan federal court, claims PayPal customers are confused by the music-streaming company’s similar logo, particularly when they search for the PayPal identifier on mobile devices, report the Washington Post, Gizmodo, the New York Post and Ars Technica.
“Element by element and in overall impression, the similarities between the logos are striking, obvious, and patently unlawful,” the suit says. “Just like the PayPal logo, the Pandora logo is a capital P in block style, sans serif, with no counter, in the same deep-blue color range.”
PayPal adopted its logo in 2014. Its suit claims that Pandora “deserted its longstanding logo and latched itself on to the increasingly popular PayPal Logo as part of its efforts to catch up to its competition,” including Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music.
A Pandora spokesperson told Gizmodo the company would have no comment while the suit is pending.
