Corporate News
An Airtel Money shop in Nairobi. PHOTO | FILE
By SANDRA CHAO-BLASTO, schao@ke.nationmedia.com
In Summary
- Safaricom has accused Airtel of infringing on its M-Pesa trademark by including its symbols on its advertising billboards.
Safaricom
has taken rival telecommunications company Airtel to court on claims
that it is infringing on its M-Pesa trademark by including its symbols
on its advertising billboards.
Safaricom has filed pictures in court that it claims show
evidence of Airtel Kenya’s usage of signs that are identical to two of
its registered M-Pesa trademarks for the promotion and marketing of
Airtel Money, 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 telco 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.
Safaricom’s in-house counsel Daniel Ndaba says in
court documents 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 Safaricom had written a cease and
desist letter to Airtel on May 15 over the use of their logo by Airtel
Money agents after investigations showed that it 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 email confirms Airtel’s intention to
misrepresent to the consumers of the competing mobile money transfer
services that Airtel and Safaricom are engaged in a common association
in rendering their respective services and that the two are one and the
same,” says Safaricom in court documents.
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.
The July 2014 announcement meant investors could
run M-Pesa services alongside those of Safaricom’s rivals such as Airtel
Money and Telkom Kenya’s Orange Money under the same roof.
Safaricom previously controlled a majority of the
mobile money transfer business and its competitors claimed that the
exclusive agent deals had helped to cement its dominant position.
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