Now in its twelfth year, Class 46 is dedicated to European trade mark law and practice. This weblog is written by a team of enthusiasts who want to spread the word and share their thoughts with others.
Click here subscribe for free.
Who we all are...
McKinley v. McKenzie
In Judgment T-502/07, the GC confirmed that there is no likelihood of confusion between CTM application
and earlier figurative CTM McKinley for similar goods in Classes 18 and 25.
The Board of Appeal correctly held that the relevant public recognized the prefix ‘Mc’ as a prefix to many Scottish or Irish family names which constitute trade marks, particularly in the clothing sector. The attention of the relevant public will not focus specifically on that prefix, nor does it constitute the dominant element.
Further, the public will consider the elements of the marks as Celtic family names without specifically association to the names of mountains -McKinley being the name of the highest mountain in North America; the association of that element with the name of a mountain is all the more conspicuous with regard to the earlier Community figurative mark McKINLEY, since it contains the drawing of a symbolic mountain. By contrast, the fact that the element ‘McKenzie’ is identical to the name of a mountain situated in Australia is little known. Thus the trademarks are sufficiently visually and conceptually different so as to exclude any likelihood of confusion.
Tags: General court, likelihood of confusion, mckinley,



Perm-A-Link: https://www.marques.org/blogs/class46?XID=BHA2390