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United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office Decisions
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office Decisions >> AJLAN (Trade Mark: Appointed Person) [2004] UKIntelP o07404 (22 March 2004)
URL: http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKIntelP/2004/o07404.html
Cite as: [2004] UKIntelP o7404, [2004] UKIntelP o07404
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AJLAN (Trade Mark: Appointed Person) [2004] UKIntelP o07404 (22 March 2004)
For the whole decision click here: o07404
Trade mark decision
- BL Number
- O/074/04
- Decision date
- 22 March 2004
- Hearing officer
- Mr Richard Arnold QC
- Mark
- AJLAN
- Classes
- 24, 25
- Applicants/Respondents
- Mohammed S Al Ajlan Sons Company
- Opponents/Appellants
- Ajlan Bin Abdulaziz Al-Ajlan & Bros Company
- Appeal to the Appointed Person against the decision of the Registrar’s Hearing Officer in opposition proceedings
Result
Appeal in respect of one mark allowed.
Appeal in respect of second mark dismissed.
Points Of Interest
- 1.
Summary
At first instance (see BL O/278/03) the Hearing Officer had found in favour of the opponent in one case and in favour of the applicant in the other two cases. The opponents appealed to the Appointed Person in respect of the two cases they had lost under Section 5(2)(b); they did not appeal the findings under Section 5(4)(a).
In respect of one of the two applications at issue, the appellant contended that the Hearing Officer had erred in principal, by inconsistency in his findings. The Appointed Person agreed, since the "relevant average consumer" for the goods "must be taken to be able to read Roman script as well as Arabic script". The Section 5(2)(b) objection would therefore have to be considered afresh.
In the result, the Appointed Person having considered the matter concluded that the Hearing officer had been right in his findings in respect of the Roman script mark, and should have reached the same finding in respect of the Arabic script mark.
Secondly, in respect of the second of the two applications under appeal, the appellant contended that the Hearing Officer had erred in principle in that he had failed to consider the likelihood of "indirect" confusion. The Appointed Person, however, pointed out that the Hearing Officer had clearly considered this aspect and had rejected it. There was no ground for interfering with his decision.
The appeal was therefore allowed in the case of one application, and dismissed in the case of the other.
The Appointed Person reversed the Hearing Officer’s costs order, since the balance was now in favour of the opponent, and made no order as to costs in respect of the appeal, since the result had been a draw.