Trade Mark Registration Fails When Confusion Likely

A recent case before the EU General Court led to the failure of an attempt to register a Community Trade Mark (CTM). The Court found that the proposed mark (which was not a real word in Spanish) was too similar to an existing Spanish trade mark for a similar product.

The application to create a CTM for the word ‘CITRACAL’ was opposed by the owner of the Spanish trade mark ‘CICATRAL’. As well as the visual and phonetic similarity of the two names, the uses of the products were similar: sufficiently similar, ruled the Court, for there to be a danger of confusion between the two on the part of the Spanish public.