[Case Summary]

The "Tute SPD" trademark applied for registration by T Company in services such as Class 39 "Warehouse Storage" and Class 44 "Medical Consultation" has been rejected by the Trademark Office due to the citation of previously registered trademarks such as "SPD" and "Polaroid SPD". The specific details are as follows:

We believe that the trademark application in this case has its prominent and recognizable part "Tu Te", and there are significant differences in the composition, calling, meaning, and overall visual appearance of the text compared to the cited trademarks. Therefore, we suggest that the client actively review.

[Result of Trial]

The review of this case has been completed, and the result is as follows: the trademark application has been preliminarily approved.

After re examination, the Trademark Office believes that the applied trademark and the cited trademark can still be distinguished as a whole, so the applied trademark does not constitute a similar trademark to the above-mentioned trademark and can be preliminarily approved.

[Case Analysis]

According to relevant data statistics, the rejection rate of applications submitted through proxy agencies in 2023 is 38.69%, while the rejection rate of other applications is 62.55%. There is a certain probability that trademark registration will be rejected, but when facing the situation of trademark registration rejection, first analyze the reasons for trademark rejection, and combine the actual situation of the applied trademark and the cited trademark to make a rejection reply review, it can still be successfully registered.

Trademark similarity refers to the similarity in the shape, pronunciation, meaning, composition, color, or overall structure of the characters, or the combination of various elements between two trademarks, which can easily cause the relevant public to misidentify the source of the goods or believe that their source is specifically related to the goods registered by the plaintiff's trademark. To determine trademark similarity, the principles of overall comparison, main part comparison, and isolated comparison should be followed. Generally, the textual part is the main identifying part of the trademark.

In this case, the applied trademark is a combination of graphics and text, and the text part of the trademark is easy to call. Compared to graphics, consumers' attention is still more easily focused on the text. In this case, the applied trademark has its distinctive identifying parts, which are significantly different from other cited trademarks. In the reexamination, the differences in the distinctive identifying parts and the overall visual appearance were emphasized, so the reexamination was successful.