LG files for GPay trademark to take on Apple, Google, and Samsung

A recent filing with the U.S. Trademark and Patent Office reveals that LG Electronics is working on a product called GPay.

The trademarked name is listed under smartwatches and mobile devices and is related to data transmission.

If GPay is a mobile payment option as the name suggests, LG will be the latest mobile company to bring a payment feature to its devices. Last October, Apple rolled out Apple Pay, which allows users to send payment data to properly equipped store registers using near-field communications. Since then, Samsung and Google have announced their own apps that allow customers to make retail purchases from their phone.

As an increasing number of companies develop their own forms of mobile payments, merchants may feel encouraged to adopt terminals that accept them. The ubiquity of such technology may in turn coerce consumers to start using mobile payments. So far, people have been slow to use mobile payments in place of credit cards. Though making mobile payment technology more widely available will no doubt raise consumer interest, merchants and mobile payment technology providers still have to create a compelling use case.

LG has not returned a request for comment, but we’ll be updating this story as we get more information.