Eurimark is helping us for fast trademark registration; we benefit from a 24/7 service to answer our clients' most urgent requests. We appreciate the number of countries covered by the system that allows us to centralize for a single project all the registrations with only one contact.
Eurimark est le système le plus intelligent pour effectuer une recherche globale concernant la protection d'un nom de marque en Europe.
Higher Regional Court of Cologne- similarity between composed word and figurative trademarks
Higher Regional Court of Cologne- similarity between complex word and figurative trademarks (OLG Köln, 6 U 214/06):
A slogan that reprsents the opposite of a slogan that is protected as a trademark cannot be considered as being similar to the potected slogan.
When copying only the abstract concept of a registered trademark, this does not cause similarity between the conflicting signs.
In the present case that has been ruled by the Higher Regional Court of Cologne on 2 March 2007 (OLG Köln, 6 U 214/06), there have been the following two signs in conflict:
and
The earlier trademark shows a sheep in its middle, surrounded by different pictures, all titled with "doof" (meaning stupid/ boring), the referred slogan "ohne dich ist alles doof" (meaning "without you, everything is boring/stupid") is represented below the sheep.
The opposed sign has been represented on a bed-linen, showing a hedgehog, subtitled with the slogan "mit dir ist alles toll" (meaning "with you, everything is great/ fantastic") and the pictures represented around the hedgehog, are all titled with "toll" (meaning great/fantastic).
According to the Court, the conceptual identity between both trademarks is not sufficient to prove that there exists a likelihood of confusion, because there are too many differences between the conflicting signs on aural and visual level.
As a result, the Court did not found the hedgehog- sign as being confusingly similar to the earlier trademark registration, so that the applicant's claim to prohibit the use of the hedgehog-bed-linen failed.