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Case C-156/10 P: Appeal brought on 6 April 2010 by Mr Karen Goncharov against the judgment of the General Court (Fourth Chamber) delivered on 21 January 2010 in Case T-34/07 Karen Goncharov v Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs); other party to the proceedings before the Board of Appeal of OHIM: DSB
ECLI:EU:UNKNOWN:62010CN0156
62010CN0156
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Official Journal of the European Union
C 148/21
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(Case C-156/10 P)
(2010/C 148/32)
Language of the case: German
Parties
Appellant: Karen Goncharov (represented by: A. Späth and G.N. Hasselblatt, Rechtsanwälte)
Other parties to the proceedings: Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs), DSB
Form of order sought
The appellant requests the Court to:
—Set aside the judgment of the General Court of 21 January 2010 (Case T-34/07);
—Annul the decision of the Second Board of Appeal of the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs) (OHIM) of 4 December 2006 (Case R 1330/2005-2); and
—Order OHIM to pay the costs of the proceedings before the Court of Justice, the General Court and the Board of Appeal, as well as the appellant’s costs.
Pleas in law and main arguments
The judgment of the General Court of 21 January 2010 (Case T-34/07) should be set aside, because it infringes the provision on the relative grounds for refusal of registration contained in Article 8(1)(b) of Council Regulation (EC) No 40/94 of 20 December 1993 on the Community trade mark (replaced by Council Regulation (EC) No 207/2009 of 26 February 2009 on the Community trade mark).
The General Court misapplied the general principles concerning the assessment of the likelihood of confusion. In particular, it failed to take the circumstances of the present case fully into account, by disregarding the fact that the marks at issue consist in acronyms.
The General Court bases its decision finally only on a general rule according to which the consumer usually attaches greater weight to the first part of words. Thus, the difference in the form of the letter ‘W’ in the contested mark is not sufficient to eliminate the visual and aural similarity.
The General Court thereby ignored the fact that the marks in conflict are not words, but acronyms. The reasoning of the judgment shows that the General Court failed to undertake a comprehensive examination of the likelihood of confusion, relying instead only on a general rule, which is moreover not applicable at all to the present case.
The consumer is in fact accustomed in the case of acronyms to directing his attention specifically to each single letter. General rules concerning word marks consisting in words may not therefore be applied without hesitation to word marks consisting in acronyms.
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