Keywords

Summary



Keywords

1. Community trade mark – Definition and acquisition of the Community trade mark – Relative grounds for refusal – Opposition by the proprietor of an earlier identical or similar mark registered for identical or similar goods or services – Likelihood of confusion with the earlier mark

(Council Regulation No 40/94, Art. 8(1)(b))

2. Community trade mark – Definition and acquisition of the Community trade mark – Relative grounds for refusal – Opposition by the proprietor of an earlier identical or similar mark registered for identical or similar goods or services – Similarity of the marks concerned – Criteria for assessment

(Council Regulation No 40/94, Art. 8(1)(b))

Summary

1. For the average German consumer, there is a likelihood of confusion under Article 8(1)(b) of Regulation No 40/94 on the Community trade mark between the word sign LIFE BLOG, for which registration as a Community trademark was sought for goods in Classes 9, 38 and 41 of the Nice Agreement, and the word mark LIFE previously registered in Germany for goods in Classes 1, 7 to 11, 16, 21, 28, 37, 38, 41 and 42.

The goods and services concerned are partly identical and partly similar. Furthermore, the overall impression made by the signs at issue is liable to create, between them, a similarity sufficient to give rise to a likelihood of confusion on the part of the consumer. Moreover, even assuming that the relevant public, including the public which shows a higher level of attention, may distinguish the signs at issue, it could nevertheless be led to believe that the marks come from the same undertaking or, as the case may be, from economically-linked undertakings, identified by the word ‘life’.

There is no ground for the assertion that, in this case, ‘life’ is less prominent than ‘blog’ in the mark applied for. It appears, in this case, that the difference between the two signs at issue as regards the last word of the mark applied for is insufficient to offset the similarity established between one of the two elements of the mark applied for and the single element of which the earlier mark is composed.

Furthermore, although there is a real conceptual difference between the signs, it cannot be regarded as making it possible to neutralise the visual and aural similarities.

In addition, even in a case involving an earlier mark of weak distinctive character and a trade mark applied for which is not a complete reproduction of it there may be a likelihood of confusion, on account, in particular, of a similarity between the signs and between the goods or services covered.

It follows that, considered cumulatively, the degree of similarity between the trade marks in question and the identity or degree of similarity between the goods and services covered by them are sufficiently high to hold that with respect to the relevant public there was a likelihood of confusion between the signs at issue.

(see paras 64-66, 70-71)

2. When a composite mark consists of one component juxtaposed to another trade mark, that latter mark, even where it is not the dominant component in the composite mark, may still have an independent distinctive role in the composite mark. In such a case, the composite mark and the other mark can be regarded as similar.

(see para. 73)