In a recent trademark appeal trial to seek dismissal of examiner’s refusal, the Appeal Board of Japan Patent Office (JPO) set aside the refusal and allowed registration of TM Application no. 2017-21396 for the XXXX mark because of dissimilarity to a senior registration for “XXXX” mark.
[Appeal case no. 2018-5881, Gazette issue date: October 26, 2018]
Applied mark
The mark in dispute (see below left) was applied for registration in the name of Mitsukoshi Isetan, Japan’s largest department store group, on February 22, 2017 by designating goods of clothing; belts in class 25 and retail or wholesale services for clothing, bags and pouches, handkerchief and hair ornaments in class 35.
Cited TM registration for “XXXX”
The JPO examiner refused the applied mark due to a conflict with senior TM registration no. 4147840 for the mark “XXXX” (see above right) based on Article 4(1)(xi) of the Trademark Law.
Article 4(1)(xi) is a provision to refrain from registering a junior mark which is deemed identical with, or similar to, any senior registered mark.
Cited mark has been registered since 1998 over goods of clothing, garters, sock suspenders, suspenders [braces], waistbands, belts for clothing, footwear, clothes for sports, special footwear for sports in class 25.
Applicant filed an appeal against the decision on April 27, 2018 and disputed dissimilarity of the marks.
Appeal Board decision
The Appeal Board sided with the applicant and negated similarity of both marks by stating that:
Applied mark shall be seen to represent a certain geometric figure. It appears that cited mark represents four alphabetical letters of “X” in line. It means there finds distinguishable gap between geometric figure and alphabetical letters from appearance.
Applied mark does not give rise to any specific pronunciation. In the meantime, cited mark shall have pronunciations of “eks eks eks eks” and “four eks”. Likewise, both marks are sufficiently distinguishable in pronunciation.
Besides, as long as both marks do not give rise to any specific meaning, it is not feasible to compare them in concept.
In view of above aspects, it unlikely happens confusion between the marks and thus deemed dissimilar.
Based on the foregoing, the Board decided applied mark is not subject to Article 4(1)(xi), and admitted registration.