In Case T-218/10, the General Court had to review the OHIM decision between DHL International GmbH (Germany) and Service Point Solutions, SA (Spain) between the following marks registered for the following goods and services:

The Board of Appeal considered that the signs were almost identical. For the English-speaking consumer, for whom “Service point” has a meaning and will be seen as descriptive of the services, there would be very low risk of confusion due to the different figurative elements. Nevertheless, the unusual combination of those two words and the fact that “customer service points” or “information points” are more commonly used to refer to a place where you receive help for services, mean than even for the English consumer, the signs will have a minimum degree of distinctiveness. As regards the rest of the EU consumers who don’t necessarily speak English , the terms “Service point” will be perceived as fanciful. According to a TNS Infratest survey produced, more than 50% of Europeans do not speak English and one third have only basic knowledge. Thus, besides in French where the words are identical, each language has spelling variations or equivalent different words in the respective languages, in particular in Bulgarian, Finnish, Greek and Hungarian. The colours and figurative drawings will be perceived as mere decorative elements and the verbal elements will strike most the consumer’s attention.

Therefore, the General Court upheld the finding of likelihood of confusion for all the identical and similar goods and services between highly similar signs.