Rospatent ruled to keep in force the trademark of the client of «A.Zalesov & Partners» Patent & Law Firm - Ferrero S.p.A.
A foreign company filed an opposition against the «СЮРПРИЗ» trademark No. 382808. The opposition was motivated by the fact that the registration of this trademark was in conflict with the public interest, namely in light of the presence of the IR No. 689359 with an early priority date, which in the opinion of the opposing party, is identical to the trademark No. 382808 and registered for the same goods.
In terms of consideration of the opposition, we proved that the trademarks are not identical to each other, but are a series of trademarks owned by the Principal and each of them is used in the form in which it is granted legal protection.
Rospatent considered that, despite the phonetic and semantic identity of the individualizing verbal elements «СЮРПРИЗ» of the compared trademarks, these designations are characterized by visually active differences that do not allow one to conclude that the compared trademarks are similar to each other in all elements, therefore, there is no reason to discuss their similarity.
In addition, we proved that the party who filed the opposition had no interest in filing it. Taking this into account, Rospatent refused to satisfy the opposition on this ground as well.
Senior Partner of «A.Zalesov & Partners», Irina Ozolina, represented the client's interests before the Chamber for Patent Disputes of Rospatent.