Kit Gouter vs./ Kit Tatin
On April 17, 2007, the French trademarks Office ruled a risk of confusion between KIT GOUTER and our client’s earlier opposed mark KIT TATIN for biscuits. For the Examiner, it was sufficient that the marks (i) share the same construction associating KIT to the words TATIN and GOUTER and (i) both refer conceptually to food preparations eased by the gathering of various elements, to decide that the signs were similar.
This approach is particularly interesting: prevalence was given to the intellectual proximity of the marks whereas the phonetic and visual similarity of the signs was less striking.