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United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office Decisions
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office Decisions >> GEORGE (Trade Mark: Opposition) [2002] UKIntelP o11602 (14 March 2002)
URL: http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKIntelP/2002/o11602.html
Cite as: [2002] UKIntelP o11602
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GEORGE (Trade Mark: Opposition) [2002] UKIntelP o11602 (14 March 2002)
For the whole decision click here: o11602
Trade mark decision
- BL Number
- O/116/02
- Decision date
- 14 March 2002
- Hearing officer
- Mr G Salthouse
- Mark
- GEORGE
- Classes
- 03
- Applicant
- Asda Stores Limited
- Opponent
- Giorgio Beverly Hills Inc
- Opposition
- Section 5(2)(b)
Result
Section 5(2)(b) - Opposition failed
Points Of Interest
- Decision appealed to the Appointed Person. In his decision dated 23 September 2002 (BL O/532/02) the Appointed Person upheld the Hearing Officer's decision.
Summary
The opponents opposition was based on their ownership of a number of registrations for the mark GIORGIO (and variations thereof) in a range of classes including Class 3 where the registrations cover identical goods to those of the applicant. The opponents filed details of user of their GIORGIO marks but this was insufficiently precise for the Hearing Officer to assume that their mark had an above average reputation at the relevant date.
Under Section 5(2)(b) it was common ground that identical goods were at issue and the Hearing Officer went on to compare the respective marks GEORGE and GIORGIO. While the respective marks differed visually by only three letters and both marks are the same name, the opponents mark being the Italian version of GEORGE, the Hearing Officer noted that the marks were different phonetically, that GEORGE would be recognised as a well known forename and that the goods at issue would be selected with some degree of care. In all the circumstances the Hearing Officer decided that the two marks were not confusingly similar.