EU court deposits decision on banking trademark
The EU General Court yesterday ruled against a banking group in a trademark appeal.
In 2016, Austria-based Addiko Bank applied to register ‘Straightforward Banking’ as a word mark in class 36 for financial and monetary affairs.
However, an examiner at the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) refused to register the mark in 2017, and in the same year, the Second Board of Appeal upheld the refusal.
The board said that the words ‘straightforward banking’ designate the kind and quality of services that the applied-for mark would cover.
Also, the applied-for mark would be perceived as a promotional message and not as an indication of the commercial origin of the services in question, the board said.
Addiko appealed against the decision.
At the EU General Court, Addiko claimed that the board was wrong to find that the applied-for mark was not capable of identifying the commercial origin of the services.
The bank claimed that the mark is devoid of descriptive character as the word ‘straightforward’ has many meanings and ‘straightforward banking’ is an unusual combination of words in light of the complexity of the services in question.
Addiko also said that in the banking sector, the relevant public is accustomed to perceiving descriptive terms as an indication of the origin of the services in question.
Finally, Addiko said that the board infringed the principle of equal treatment, by departing from the decision-making practice of the EU.
Yesterday, the General Court said that a word sign must be refused registration if at least one of its possible meanings designates a characteristic of the goods or services concerned.
The court held that the applied-for mark would be perceived as a “promotional formula for the quality of the services in question”.
“The relevant public will perceive the expression ‘straightforward banking’, not as meaning that the banking services are simple, but as meaning that the applicant will seek to provide services relating to financial and monetary affairs in an understandable way,” the court said.
Consumers would believe that ‘Straightforward Banking’ describes the fact that the services are easy to use, which is a desirable quality, the court explained, and the unusual combination of the two words does not mean that the applied-for mark is capable of indicating the commercial origin of the services.
The court added that Addiko cannot validly rely on the argument that descriptive marks are capable of indicating services’ commercial origin in the banking sector, or on previous decisions of the EUIPO.
The board was correct to find that the applied-for mark designates the quality of the services in question, and this conclusion cannot be invalidated by Addiko’s arguments, the court concluded.
Dismissing the appeal, the General Court ordered Addiko to pay the costs.
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