EU General Court sides with Audi in TM appeal

The EU General Court has rejected an appeal from a Lithuanian sportswear maker whose trademark was invalidated after an opposition from Audi.

In a judgment earlier today, July 12, the General Court upheld a decision by the European Union Intellectual Property Office ( EUIPO), ruling that an applied-for mark by Audimas would likely be confused with Audi’s earlier trademark.

In 2014, Audimas applied to register a trademark for its name in black font, with one stylised, open and closing bracket above the word element. The registration was sought for goods and services such as leather, animal skins, clothing, footwear, advertising, retailing and wholesaling.

Audi opposed the registration 2015 and the application was refused two years later. Audimas appealed the decision but this was rejected by the EUIPO’s Board of Appeal in May 2018.

In its decision, the EUIPO had ruled that the dominant element of the applied-for mark was the term ‘audi’, and therefore would be confusing against Audi’s earlier trademark.

In its argument to the court, Audimas said the view that the word element of its applied-for mark can be divided into two parts is “artificial and unfounded”.

“The element ‘audimas’ has always been written in a single word, with the same spacing between the letters and without separation between them,” it said.

In the applied-for trademark, the open bracket is positioned above the ‘di’ in ‘audi’ and the closing bracket is positioned above the letter ‘m’.

The General Court agreed with the EUIPO that the positioning of the figurative element indicates that the term ‘audimas’ is perceived in two parts.

Additionally, the court upheld the EUIPO’s finding that for the relevant Spanish-speaking public, the term ‘mas’ refers to “more” or “plus”.

It said that because the term ‘mas’ is already well-known to Spanish speakers it has less distinctiveness. Contrastingly, the term ‘audi’ has no concrete meaning in Spanish, this will be the most dominant element of the mark in the minds of these consumers.

Additionally, the General Court said that “even if the average consumer regularly perceives a trademark as a whole, it will break a word mark into its verbal elements”.

“Furthermore, consumers generally pay more attention to the beginning of a mark than to its end,” the court said.

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