LG Electronics might be gearing up to either rebrand or enhance its mobile payment service in at least three different world regions, following new trademarks for “LG Pay Quick” that have been spotted by Netherlands-based LetsGoDigital. Specifically, the trademark has been filed and is awaiting approval in the US, South Korea, and Europe, appearing at the countries’ respective agency for trademarks as of mid-October of this year. As might be expected, the trademark applies to Nice Classifications 9 and 36, indicating that this will likely be a piece of software run on a smartphone and centered around mobile ‘transactions’ and ‘payments’.
Background: LG already has its own LG Pay service that has been operating in many world regions since the middle of 2017. That technology is very similar to the solution put in place by its rival, Samsung, in that it doesn’t depend on NFC as Google Pay does in order to generate a connection for contactless payments. It is not exactly like that other service either since Samsung’s technology is based on the company’s Magnetic Secure Transmission service while LG utilizes Wireless Magnetic Communication. In either case, the technology is not only compatible with NFC readers found at many retail locations but also with more traditional magnetic strip readers. That enables far more options than NFC rather than depending on any specialized hardware at the register. LG Pay is also not at all available yet in either Europe or the US, despite the manufacturer’s promise earlier this year that it would be arriving by the middle of 2018. The functionality and its associated app had been expected to arrive alongside the LG G7 ThinQ and LG V40 ThinQ but that never panned out.
Impact: The trademark seems to hint that LG Pay Quick is being trademarked for regions where it hasn’t previously launched LG Pay, at first glance. But that doesn’t necessarily account for every aspect of the newly listed trademarks. To begin with, LG Pay is already available in at least one of the regions for which the trademark has been filed, South Korea. If this were a total rebranding of the original LG Pay, it might make more sense for LG to roll out the change to every region where that service has already been made available rather than starting where it isn’t. Bearing that in mind, the new trademark seems most likely to be a similar service to that or for a solution that builds on the previous implementation in some way.