Last year I posted about the trademark infringement complaint by PayPal against Pandora, based on Pandora’s rebranded “P” logo that was introduced in October 2016. See a comparison below of PayPal’s blue “PP” design mark (left) with Pandora’s blue “P” design mark (right).
Last November, the parties reached a written settlement agreement and stipulated to dismissal of the lawsuit. There was some media coverage of the settlement, but no details of the settlement were discussed in the media nor in any comments from the parties. A spokesperson for PayPal commented only that “we have resolved this matter amicably.” Thus it appears the terms of the settlement were confidential.
Despite such confidentiality, it has seemed, at least for the past few months, that PayPal was on the winning side of the dispute, as it continued using its blue “P” logo without any changes. Nevertheless, since my post last year, I’ve kept an eye on the logo, as it’s relatively common for settlement agreements in trademark disputes to have extended “phrase-out” periods, in which a party is given some time period (such as three months) to phrase-out an infringing mark and switch to a rebranded mark.
Last week (roughly three months since the date of settlement), I noticed the Pandora logo on my iPhone app had suddenly changed, see below.
After some (very brief) searching, I could not find any announcement or mention of the new logo on Pandora’s website or blog, nor on Pandora’s Twitter feed. Nor have I found any other significant media or online discussion of the new logo, yet. This is a bit surprising in light of the extensive marketing and announcements surrounding the previous rebrand.
I believe the logo change occurred about a week ago, based on when my iPhone app updated, but I can’t be sure. Perhaps this is just a temporary or seasonal logo change for other reasons, but I can’t think of a reason why. Nor does it appear to be limited to the iPhone app–the new logo also appears in the Google Play store, on Amazon, on Pandora’s official Twitter account, and its YouTube channel.
Just a wild guess, but perhaps the written settlement agreement required Pandora to change its logo within three months, and also required both parties to remain silent and refrain from any announcements of the new logo? And just another guess, if that’s the case, perhaps Pandora requested confidentiality, and silence regarding the rebrand, to avoid any suggestion that PayPal’s claims were meritorious (i.e., that Pandora’s logo infringed or diluted PayPal’s logo), or that Pandora was on the losing end of the settlement.
What do you think? As I only searched briefly, let me know, have you found any other discussion or media coverage yet of the new logo? Also, what do you think of the new logo from a branding perspective? Not sure I like the contrasting color combinations, but I could get used to it.
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