The Court of First Instance has this morning annulled the decision of the First Board of Appeal in Case T‑181/05 Citigroup, Inc. (formerly Citicorp) and Citibank NA v OHIM, Citi SL intervening. In short, Citi applied to register the mark on the right as a Community trade mark for customs agency services, property valuers, real estate agents, evaluation and the administration of house contents (Class 36). In a consolidated opposition, two banks objected, citing earlier registrations of several marks consisting of or containing the word "CITI" for financial and real estate services in the same class, one of which appears below, left.

The Opposition Division upheld the opposition under Art.8(5) of the CTM Regulation. Citi however appealed with some success to the Board of Appeal, which took the view that--while the opposition should be upheld for most of the services, the Opposition Division's decision should be annulled with respect to customs agency services. In the Board's view there was no evidence that there existed a family of earlier "citi-" marks which both had a reputation or which would be perceived as belonging to the same family. The only earlier mark with a reputation was the word mark CITIBANK for financial services, which was not similar to Citi's mark.

The Court of First Instance today agreed with the banks that there was sufficient similarity between Citi's mark and their own earlier marks for the public to be able to establish a link between them. Though it didn't need to do so, the court also said it thought that there was a high probability that the use of Citi's mark would lead to free-riding on the reputation of the earlier marks; there being no evidence of due cause, Citi's application must fail.