EU-oppositieprocedure o.g.v. ouder Gemeenschapswoordmerk “BABIDU” tegen woordmerk “BABILU” voor advertentiediensten. Het BHIM heeft de oppositie toegewezen en het Gerecht bevestigt deze beslissing. Verwarringsgevaar wordt aangenomen: er is sprake van identieke diensten (het Spaanse ‘publicidad’, waarvoor het oudere merk was ingeschreven, had vertaald moeten worden als ‘advertising’ en niet als ‘publicity’) en er is een hoge mate van overeenstemming tussen de tekens (visueel en auditief gezien, begripsmatig hebben beide tekens geen enkele betekenis).
58. Secondly, there is a strong visual resemblance between the marks at issue. Both marks consist of a single word containing six letters, the first four and the last of which are identical and appear in the same order. The only difference visually between the marks at issue is represented by the fifth letter, which is the letter ‘d’ in the earlier trade mark and the letter ‘l’ in the mark applied for. However, in view of the fact that consumers normally attach greater significance to the beginnings of words, that difference is not sufficient to offset the strong visual similarity created by the presence of the common element ‘babi’ at the beginning of the marks at issue.
63. There is a high degree of aural similarity between the marks at issue. They both contain three open syllables, the first two of which, namely ‘ba’ and ‘bi’, are identical. On that point, it should be borne in mind that, as has been mentioned in paragraph 58 above, consumers normally focus particularly on the beginning of a word. Moreover, the marks at issue contain the same vowel sequence ‘a’, ‘i’ and ‘u’. The sole difference is that the last syllable begins with the consonant ‘d’ in the earlier trade mark and the consonant ‘l’ in the mark applied for. However, as the Board of Appeal rightly observed, the fact that those consonants are both followed by the vowel ‘u’ leads to similar sounds when pronouncing the last syllable of each of the marks at issue.
Lees het arrest hier.
