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...
General Court: ANTISTAX v. ANGIPAX
In case T‑368/13, the General Court had to review the following opposition:
Earlier mark |
Contested CTM |
ANTISTAX Class 3 “pharmaceutical products” |
ANGIPAX Various goods in Class 3 |
The products are partly identical, partly similar (to a medium or low level) and partly different.
As regards the comparison of the signs, there are visual and phonetic similarities between the signs, but also differences. Conceptually, none of the signs had clear meaning, and the prefix "angi" could be understood as a reference to blood vessels or the condition of angina, while the "anti" prefix is an original Latin prefix commonly understood meaning "opposite; against. "The Board of Appeal went on to note that the conceptual difference immediately perceived the early signs allow the public and even the general consumer to distinguish easily, even without the other differences between the last syllables. Even if the signs were compared as whole words and both considered invented words, they still would present no similarity, since meaningless words can not be conceptually similar.
As regards, the likelihood of confusion, if the conflicting signs have common elements, they are not sufficient to justify the finding of an overall similarity, taking into account in particular the fact that the relevant public consisted of medical professionals or of average consumers who purchase health care products and that would have a higher degree of attention. Therefore OHIM correctly concluded there is no risk of confusion between the conflicting signs, despite the identity and partial similarity of the goods in question.
Posted by: Laetitia Lagarde @ 17.42Tags: General court, likelihood of confusion, antistax, angipax,



Perm-A-Link: https://www.marques.org/blogs/class46?XID=BHA4011