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Result
Sections 5(2)(b) - Opposition partially successful
Points Of Interest
Summary
The opponents opposition was based on their ownership of a registration of the mark PARETO in Class 36 in respect of, essentially, financial services. They also had extensive use of their PARETO mark in relation to services of a specialist institutional investment manager.
Under Section 5(2) the Hearing Officer compared the respective marks and decided that they were confusingly similar. He also concluded that there were similar services at issue in the respective specifications and therefore the opponents were successful in their opposition under Section 5(2)(b). However, not all the applicants claimed services were in conflict with those of the opponent and the Hearing Officer allowed the application to proceed for a restricted specification.