On September 7, 2006, the European Court of First Instance claimed the marks PAM-PIM’S BABY PROP and PAM-PAM to be similar.
The comparison was focused only on PAM-PAM and PAM-PIM’S because of
(i ) the introductory position of PAM-PIM’S and of
(ii) the presence of “baby” in many everyday language expressions for babies’ products.
Visually, these elements were considered to have the same structure and share the same first term, phonetically, to bear two monosyllabic terms with the same overall sound and, from an intellectual point of view, to be a possible child’s babble.
The exclusion of BABY PROP is too radical and wrongly justified. It should have weighted in the balance that the sole presence of BABY is insufficient to neglect PROP in BABYPROP.