In Judgment T-213/09, the General Court rejected the appeal against the Board’s decision finding LOC according to Article 8(1) (b) CTMR between figurative CTM Yorma’s and earlier word trademark Norma.

It held that the contested goods in Class 35 ‘services Retail trading in meat, fish and poultry products, jams, eggs, milk, milk products, coffee, tea, sugar, rice, bread, pastry and confectionery, ices; honey, salt, mustard; vinegar, sauces and spices’ , despite the difference in nature, use and purpose, are complementary and thus similar to the earlier goods comprised in Classes 29 and 30. As regards services in Class 42 ‘Accommodation and catering for guests’, they are similar to house renting services in Class 36 – which can also consist of short term accommodation- and complementary and similar to goods in Classes 30, 32, 33 which are necessarily used for catering services.

Applying case-law about complex trademarks to the contested CTM, the Court confirmed that the word element YORMA’S is visually more important in the global impression, although the figurative elements (blue and yellow colours, lines and Y) are not negligible, there are four identical letters ‘o,r,m,a’ and the apostrophe ‘s’ are not so striking as to overcome the similarities. Thus, they are similar visually and phonetically; conceptually, YORMA’S can be understood as a first name and NORMA as ‘norm, rule’ by part of the public or as coined words by the consumer, in any case, the differences are not sufficient to overcome the similarities.