Ripple is sued by NPP Australia for alleged trademark infringement

August 30, 2020 Editor Ripple 0

  • NPP Australia has allegedly sued Ripple Labs for intellectual property infringement and protection of the “PayID” trademark.
  • The lawsuit was filed in Australian Federal Court on August 20, with the next hearing scheduled for August 26.

As was announced yesterday, Ripple Labs is facing a new trial. Only this time it is not about the question whether XRP is a security in the sense of the American law. Instead, the lawsuit was filed with the New South Wales Registry in the Federal Court of Australia on August 20. The plaintiff is NPP Australia Ltd. In addition, it probably concerns intellectual property and the protection of the trademark “PayID”. On Twitter, Rohan Pearce was the first to draw attention to the development.

The New Payments Platform (NPP) is an industry-wide payment platform for Australia, which has already been adopted by more than 60 Australian banks and creates a national infrastructure for fast payments within the country. Allegedly, NPP is concerned with intellectual property and the protection of the “PayID” trademark, as  NPP already launched its own version of PayID, an addressing function, in February 2018.

Ripple launched “its version” of PayID in June this year, offering consumers the equivalent of an email address, a unique, easy-to-read ID and universal payment address that works with any service provider. At launch, Ripple announced 40 partners, including BitPay, Brave, BitGo and Huobi, and over 100 million potential users. Potentially one day, transactions of all kinds, whether bank transfer, PayPal, Western Union or cryptocurrency transfer, could be processed via the standard.

Official court documents describing the content of the lawsuit in detail have not yet become public. However, according to speculation about the suit so far, it seems very likely that the lawsuit is about the trademark “PayID”. As described, Ripple’s PayID was released on June 18, 2020, more than two years after the NPP introduced its version of PayID in Australia.

The first phase of the hearing, known as the interlocutory hearing, was conducted by Judge Burley via web conference on August 20 and adjourned for the preliminary hearing. The next hearing, a case management hearing, via web conference is scheduled for this Wednesday, August 26. NPP is represented by Clayton Utz, one of the six major Australian law firms. Further, the case document signed by the Secretary of the Court shows that Ripple Labs is represented by Thomas M. Hadid of Kilpatrick Townsend Attorneys.