easyGroup yet another fail to fight trade mark registration

As reported earlier this year on The Trademarkroom blog, easyGroup, the owner of easyJet, have had a few issues of late preventing others from filing ‘easy’ brands.

This time around, easyGroup have taken aim at an electric bicycle company.

An application was filed by Dennis Ware at the end of 2016 at the UK Intellectual Property Office for ‘Ezibike’ in respect of class 12 and 25 which covers bicycles and clothing.

This application was opposed by easyGroup on the grounds that the application has similarities with five of easyGroups marks which include ‘easyJet’ , ‘easyCar’, ‘easyVan’ and ‘easyBus’ and ‘easyCoach’.

The opposition was based on the ‘Ezi’ part of the application and its phonetic similarity with easyGroup’s ‘easy’ marks. The claim went on to say that the combination of this with the descriptive element ‘bike’ would lead consumers to believe that the mark is owned or connected with easyGroup.

Ware countered this with the explanation that the words ‘easy’ and ‘ezi’ are not similar in spelling. In addition, he highlighted that the inclusion of ‘ez’ was to represent the sound of an electric bicycle.

Oliver Morris, on behalf of the UK Intellectual Property Office considered the matter and stated that while the marks are of similar length and both start with ‘E’ that is where the similarity ends.

He went on further to state that the level of visual similarity is extremely low and there is not enough to highlight a risk of confusion.

Therefore, the application will continue.

If you would like some more information on registering a trade mark, get in touch with The Trademarkroom team today.