Formula One stalls in the third
The EU General Court has ruled that the licensing arm of the group responsible for promoting the Formula One World Championship cannot prevent the registration of a community trademark containing the words ‘F1 Live’.
The February 17 judgment upholds the decision of the Office of Harmonization for the Internal Market’s (OHIM) appeals board to block Formula One Licensing’s opposition.
Formula One Licensing opposed Racing-Live’s 2004 application for a figurative mark at OHIM in 2004. The opposition division agreed with Formula One, but its decision was overturned on appeal.
Racing-Live’s figurative mark, which was transferred to Global Sports Media in 2010, contains the words ‘F1 Live’ and was applied for in classes 16, 38 and 41 relating to formula one racing.
The opposition relied on existing marks including an international word mark and two national word marks for ‘F1’, as well as a community figurative mark for a logo containing the words ‘F1 Formula 1’.
The General Court had to decide whether the figurative mark would confuse consumers considering its similarity to Formula One Licensing’s logotype mark.
It found that there is a lack of visual similarity and only limited phonetic and conceptual similarities between the marks. It added: “…[I]t should be noted that the fact that the public attributes a generic meaning to the sign F1 means that it will understand that the mark applied for concerns Formula 1, but because of its totally different layout, the public will not make a connection between that mark and the activities of the applicant.”
Formula One Licensing may appeal against the General Court’s ruling—limited to points of law—to the European Court of Justice within two months of the decision.
