In Case T- 477/10, the Board of Appeal had annulled the decision from the Opposition Division finding a likelihood of confusion between the two signs represented hereunder for identical or similar goods in Classes 18 and 25:

  v     SE SO EASY

Contested CTM                                               earlier German TM

The General Court annulled the contested decision and observed that the Board did not appreciate correctly the similarity between the signs, considering that there was only a low degree of similarity when globally there is at least a medium degree of similarity.

From a visual point of view, in both trademarks the group of letters “SE” does not have any specific meaning in the German language, so it has an average distinctive character. In addition, the consumer will be attracted by this element given its size, position, stylized font and the contrast with the red rectangle. On the other side, the elements “sports equipment”, being descriptive, and “ so easy” being laudatory, belong to basic English vocabulary and will be understood by the German public. The element © is descriptive and does not have any influence in the comparison. Thus the element SE is the most dominant element of the signs and there is an average degree of visual and high degree conceptual similarity between the signs.