EU General Court annuls EUIPO TM ruling

Malaysian lighting company IQ Group Holdings has been handed a victory after the EU General Court reversed a European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) decision to deny registration of its trademark.

In the  decision, issued this morning, March 19, the EU General Court ruled that the EUIPO had erred in finding that the goods covered by two conflicting marks were similar.

IQ Group obtained a World Intellectual Property Organization registration for the the ‘Lumiqs’ mark in 2014 (number 1220053).

The mark covered class 11 for various lighting fixtures for commercial use, but not including Christmas lights or any products for use alongside Christmas lights.

German company Krinner Innovation filed a notice of opposition in 2015, citing its own 2006 EU marks for ‘Lumix’ in classes 11 and 28, covering lights and electric decorations for Christmas trees.

The EUIPO’s opposition division sided with Krinner in 2017, refusing protection for IQ’s ‘Lumiqs’ mark in the EU. That decision was upheld by the office’s first board of appeal later that year.

The General Court has now reversed the EUIPO’s ruling on appeal, finding that as IQ Group’s mark explicitly excluded any products for use with Christmas lights, the goods and services protected by both companies’ marks were not “remotely similar”.

Although both companies provide lighting products, the goods at issue in this case were “neither complementary nor in competition”, the ruling said.

The court also said that the fact that the goods may be sold in the same outlet such as a department store was irrelevant.

“Very different kinds of goods may be found in such retail outlets and consumers do not automatically assume that they are from the same source”, it added.

The court ordered that the EUIPO bear its costs and those of IQ Group.