vs./ FUBU

On September 14, 2006, the Second Board of Appeal maintained that a difference of one letter in short signs was sufficient enough to avoid confusion between the marks above.

Besides, the configuration of the mark FUGU enabled to move away from FUBU due to a device twice as big as the text and due to round characters, creating thus an eye-catching complex mark.

Furthermore, the Board admitted that the figurative element was self sufficient to preclude the visual proximity.

This Community approach is particularly useful for building up a strategy when performing trademarks searches on short marks with an earlier disclosed right.