Trade mark decision

BL Number

O/199/07

Decision date

16 July 2007

Hearing officer

Professor Ruth Annand

Mark

STERITROX

Classes

03, 05, 07, 09, 11

Applicant

Ozone Systems Limited

Opponent

Sterilox Technologies Inc

Opposition

Section 5(2)(b)

Result

Section 5(2)(b) Appeal to the Appointed Person: Appeal allowed. Application refused in respect of all Classes applied for.

Points Of Interest

• See also Hearing Officer’s decision dated 7 December 2006 (BL O/354/07).

Summary

The only matter of appeal of the Hearing Officer’s decision dated 7 December 2006 (BL O/354/06) was his decision to allow the Class 7 application to proceed with a restricted specification. The revised wording was proposed by the Hearing Officer in his decision without the agreement of either party.

In his decision the Hearing Officer had concluded that the opponent was successful in its opposition in respect of all the classes listed above and it was only by amending the specification in Class 7 that the application could proceed. On appeal the opponent submitted that the Hearing Officer had erred in his approach to amending the specification in Class 7; that he had produced a specification which was not factually correct; that the proposed specification was still in conflict with the opponent’s goods and services and that the wording suggested produced a vague specification.

The Appointed Person considered carefully the Hearing Officer’s earlier decision and his decision as to what constituted similar goods and services as regards Class 7. In the light of his examination the Appointed Person concluded that the revised specification proposed by the Hearing Officer was not acceptable since similar goods and services were still at issue; that it contained goods not proper to Class 7 and that the wording was vague. He, therefore, allowed the appeal and refused the application in its entirety.