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EU General Court: EUIPO erred in 'May Tea'/'Майский Чай'; conceptual similarity limited by descriptiveness; case remitted for reassessment

Published on: 27 February 2025

Published by a Law360 reporter
Legal News
Article summary

The General Court ruled

The General Court held that the EU Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) had wrongly favoured the Russian tea producer, May COO, by overemphasising its view that Russian-speaking Latvians would recognise May’s ‘Майский Чай’ as a translation of Schweppes International Ltd’s ‘May Tea’ mark. As ‘tea’ and ‘чай’ are merely descriptions of the parties’ products, the court stated that, in these circumstances, any conceptual overlap between the signs should carry only limited weight when assessing the likelihood of confusion for that segment of the public. This contrasts with the EUIPO’s Board of Appeal, which in 2023 concluded that the conceptual identity of the marks prevailed over their visual and phonetic differences...

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