Similar Trademark Classes

Similar Trademark Classes

When deciding whether goods or services are similar for the purposes of the Trade Mark Act, issues such as the nature of the goods or services, their end users, their methods of use and whether they are in competition with one another or just complementary will be considered.

Any assessment of similarity will be made by reference to the relevant public for the respective goods. This public will be consumers in general, for many types of goods, but consist of specialists for goods that are directed at very narrow markets.

It should be noted that in order to succeed, an opponent basing a claim on this section of the law only needs to prove prior rights and a likelihood of confusion in a single EU country. Consequently, in trying to establish similarity between the trade mark applied for and an earlier right, an opponent's evidence should focus on the country or countries where the public is most likely to perceive the marks as similar. These might vary depending, for example, on how the marks may be pronounced in particular countries. In fact, the native language of the target consumer of the trade marked goods or services often has a decisive effect on whether there is a finding of similarity between word marks.

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