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United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office Decisions
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office Decisions >> A (Trade Mark: Opposition) [2006] UKIntelP o12306 (11 May 2006)
URL: http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKIntelP/2006/o12306.html
Cite as: [2006] UKIntelP o12306
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A (Trade Mark: Opposition) [2006] UKIntelP o12306 (11 May 2006)
For the whole decision click here: o12306
Trade mark decision
- BL Number
- O/123/06
- Decision date
- 11 May 2006
- Hearing officer
- Mr D Landau
- Mark
- A
- Classes
- 03, 16
- Applicants
- Aloha Surfboards Pty Limited
- Opponents
- Major League Baseball Properties Inc
- Opposition
- Sections 5(2)(b); 5(3) & 5(4)(a)
Result
Section 5(2)(b): Opposition partly successful. Section 5(3): Opposition failed. Section 5(4)(a): Opposition failed.
Points Of Interest
- Costs in proceedings before the Registrar; voluminous and irrelevant evidence; costs above the published scale.
Summary
The opposition was based on the opponents’ mark, a stylised letter A (which the Hearing Officer found ‘similar to a high degree’) registered in classes 18, 25, 28 and 41).
The Hearing Officer criticised the opponents’ evidence which was very voluminous, as being neither directed to the relevant date nor the relevant jurisdiction. A large part of it was directed to establishing the fame of baseball in the UK, which was not the issue. In view of these failings, the Section 5(3) objection was not sustainable, and no claim to an enhanced reputation could be made for the purposes of Section 5(2)(b).
However, after a detailed assessment of similarity in the goods/services the Hearing Officer concluded that there was a likelihood of confusion in the case of the Class 3 goods in the application and the Sections 5(2)(b) objection succeeded to that extent. The Section 5(4)(a) objection was dismissed.
In view of the additional work and trouble to which the applicants had been put by the opponents’ largely irrelevant evidence, the Hearing Officer reserved his decision on costs and invited the applicants to address him on this point.