EU General Court can’t see difference in glasses trademark dispute
The EU General Court has dismissed an appeal from a Cypriot sunglasses manufacturer which had claimed the Fifth Board of Appeal was wrong to say its trademark would be confusing for the Slovenian-speaking public.
In a decision handed down yesterday, December 14, the EU General Court rejected N & C Franchise’s appeal and ordered it to pay all costs.
The dispute began in September 2014, when N & C filed an application for the figurative sign ‘OJO Sunglasses’, which consisted of the term ‘OJO’ in gold capital letters with ‘sunglasses’ written in lower case below.
In December 2014, German company Eschenbach Optik opposed the registration, on the basis that it was confusingly similar to its ‘oio’ mark it had registered.
In November 2015, this was upheld by the Opposition Division.
In January 2016, N & C filed a notice of appeal with the European Union Intellectual Property Office, which rejected it in September 2016.
The Board of Appeal found that the Opposition Division had correctly decided that the pronunciation of the words ‘ojo’ and ‘oio’ would be the same, “at least in Slovenian”, and therefore the marks were confusingly similar.
N & C then appealed to the General Court, which handed down yesterday’s ruling.
“The applicant does not adduce any evidence of a creative aspect of the figurative element relied on that is capable of distinguishing its goods from those of other undertakings,” it stated.
It added: “The Board of Appeal did not err in law in recalling that, where signs are composed of both verbal and figurative elements, the word element of the sign, in principle, has a greater impact on the consumer than the figurative element.”
N & C was ordered to pay the costs.
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EU General Court can’t see difference in glasses trademark dispute
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