Apple partly victorious in EU trademark dispute with Chinese keyboard and solar panel maker

The EU Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) has partly granted Apple’s opposition to a trademark application from a Chinese company called Yichun Qinningmeng Electronics, due to concerns that its citrus-shaped logo could benefit from Apple’s reputation in the EU. Here are the details.

Apple wins trademark dispute over citrus-shaped logo, with a caveat

As spotted by MacRumors, the EUIPO has rejected Yichun Qinningmeng Electronics’ request to register its citrus-shaped logo for keyboards and other computer-related products, but upheld the company’s application for solar panels.

This case started last July, when Apple opposed Yichun Qinningmeng Electronics’ EU trademark application, arguing that the company’s citrus-shaped logo was too similar to Apple’s own logo.

The logo depicts a round citrus fruit with a left-pointing leaf, a missing section on its right side, lower segments that look like keyboard keys, and upper segments reminiscent of sunbeams. Apple argued that most of those elements evoked its own logo, especially for products related to computers and electronics.

As the EUIPO explains it, “the grounds for refusal of Article 8(5) EUTMR are only applicable when the following conditions are met:”

• The signs must be either identical or similar.
• The opponent’s trade mark must have a reputation. The reputation must also be prior to the filing of the contested trade mark; it must exist in the territory concerned and for the goods and/or services on which the opposition is based.
• Risk of injury: use of the contested trade mark would take unfair advantage of, or be detrimental to, the distinctive character or repute of the earlier trade mark.

The EUIPO adds that these requirements ”are cumulative and, therefore, the absence of any one of them will lead to the rejection of the opposition (…).”

With that in mind, in its decision, the EUIPO said:

However, the fulfilment of all the abovementioned conditions may not be sufficient. The opposition may still fail if the applicant establishes due cause for the use of the contested trade mark.

In the present case, the applicant did not claim to have due cause for using the contested mark. Therefore, in the absence of any indications to the contrary, it must be assumed that no due cause exists.

The EUIPO goes on to explain that while Apple “enjoys a high degree of reputation among the relevant public in the European Union” for computer-related goods, that was not the case “for all of the goods for which a reputation is claimed.”:

Therefore, although the signs are only visually similar to a very low degree, the Opposition Division concludes that, when encountering the contested sign in relation to the above-mentioned goods in Class 9 – which have, or may have, a close connection with the goods for which the earlier mark enjoys a high degree of reputation – the relevant consumers are likely to associate it with the earlier mark, that is to say, to establish a mental ‘link’ between the signs.

On the other hand, the contested solar panels for the production of electricity are devices designed to convert sunlight directly into electrical energy through the photovoltaic effect. […] The contested goods at stake do not target the same relevant consumers, since they satisfy completely different needs and have different distribution channels. […] Therefore, and because these contested goods and the opponent’s relevant goods for which a reputation has been proved belong to distinct industries and commercial sectors that have nothing clearly relevant in common, the Opposition Division finds it highly unlikely that the relevant public, when encountering the contested sign in relation to such services, would recall the earlier mark, even if it enjoys a high degree of reputation.

As a result, the office granted Apple’s opposition to computer-related goods due to the possibility that consumers could mentally link the two signs, but allowed Yichun Qinningmeng Electronics to proceed with the trademark for solar panels.

You can read the EUIPO’s decision below: