General Court upholds EUIPO decision on genuine use (Altunis-Trading v EUIPO)

Table of contents

• What was the background?
• What did the court decide?
• Case details

Article summary

IP analysis: The EU General Court has dismissed an appeal by Altunis-Trading against a decision of the Fourth Board of Appeal of the EUIPO in which it held there was genuine use of an earlier mark. The Fourth Board of Appeal had also found there was an average degree of similarity between the goods in question and the services protected by the earlier trade mark and that the degree of similarity between the marks was rather high, leading to a likelihood of confusion on the part of the relevant public concerning all of the contested goods. Altunis-Trading had applied for protection of an International registration designating the EU for the word mark CIPRIANI for Nice Agreement Class 32 goods. Hotel Cipriani Srl successfully filed an opposition based on the earlier mark HOTEL CIPRIANI designating services in Class 42 (now Class 43).