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• H&R Block said that Block competes directly with the former in several areas of financial services
• It also noted the similarities in the logo of the two companies
U.S. tax preparation company H&R Block is suing former Twitter CEO, Jack Dorsey’s digital payments company Square Inc, which was renamed Block Inc. this month.
H&R Block stated in its press release that the Silicon Valley fintech company “Block Inc” competes directly with the former in several areas of financial services, including tax preparation through its recent purchase of Credit Karma Tax, now called Cash App Taxes.
The tax-prep firm noted the similarities in the logo of the two companies. H&R Block’s logo is a green square while Block’s Cash App is a green square with rounded corners and a white dollar sign.
H&R Block mentioned that it had built a brand name over 65 years by investing in marketing and building a customer base. It said that rather than building its brand name, Block Inc. was trying to capitalize on the Block moniker, violating trademark rights, which threatens to confuse consumers and cause harm.
Block, or Square, co-founded by Dorsey in 2009, is an in-person payments company that allows people to accept credit card payments.
H&R Block President and CEO, Jeff Jones stressed the need to protect and defend their brand name. “Today’s filing is an important effort to prevent consumer confusion and ensure a competitor cannot leverage the reputation and trust we have built over more than six decades,” he said.
Earlier this month, Block CEO Jack Dorsey said the new name reflected the company’s ambitions, like the blockchain, outside of its original card-reader product called Square. That area of the business would still retain the Square name.
“We built the Square brand for our Seller business, which is where it belongs,” Dorsey, cofounder and CEO, said in a statement.
The ticker name SQ would remain the same for Block for trading on the New York Stock Exchange.