PayPal sues Pandora over confusingly similar logos (engadget.com)
over 6 years ago from Clay MacTavish, web developer
over 6 years ago from Clay MacTavish, web developer
Its pretty silly. How PayPal, a payments service, is being adversely affected by Pandora, a music streaming service, is beyond me. And are we supposed to believe that PayPal owns sans-serif P's without counters?
Agreed! If both companies were in the same industry/sector, I could see more of an argument to be made. And a company believing they can own a style of letter is pretty far-fetched.
That being said, Pandora's whole rebrand was quite un-inspiring—A sans serif 'P' with the counter removed. The brand applications were much more impressive than the actual brand IMO. And the designers at Pandora HAD to have been aware of the extreme similarities as they were crafting the new brand. They could have gone the extra mile and made a mark that was unique to Pandora's service and values, yet they somehow all came to the conclusion that a boring 'P' was the best solution. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
To be fair, I've opened up the wrong app many times because they look similar.
This is ridiculous.
This is a bit much.. how can they remotely prove that it's a rip off?
PayPal don't own the letter "P", nor do they own the colour blue. The blue's aren't even the same.
Any self respecting branding designer they bring in to the process will explain that these aren't similar enough to constitute this kind of legal action. Ridiculous.
This is such low-hanging fruit for journalists. Unfortunately, most companies feel that they have to pursue legal action against other companies that might even slightly be infringing on their trademark as they risk losing the trademark if they don't.
This doesn't make it okay but it's so easy for a journalist to suggest this as one company taking on another for petty reasons when that might not be the entire case.
"PayPal is asking the court to order Pandora to stop using its new logo and to pay for damages. It also wants the streaming service to promise never to do anything that could lead people into believing that it's connected to the payment platform again."
What damages could have been caused, you opened the wrong app and then closed it and go to the correct one. I think there is a slight similarity on the account of them both being 'P's but really I don't think this has merit. One has two p's the other is a singular one. If they were the same service I'd agree about confusing people.
Pandora should integrate the Rdio logo design (musical note for the counter). It fixes the issue and makes for a stronger brand.
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