A Sporty Event! - Lexology

A Greek company named, Athlon Custom Sportswear (Athlon), filed a trademark application for registration of the mark  in Class 25 covering ‘Athletic clothes and hats’ bearing application no. 016162596. The mark was filed in December, 2016 at the EUIPO. As soon as the mark was advertised in January, 2017, Decathlon opposed the mark.

Decathlon, a French company, is the registered proprietor of the marks: ‘Decathlon’, , DECAT' in Class 25 and several other classes at the EUIPO. In its opposition, Decathlon stated that the consumers would to get confused with respect to the origin of the goods bearing the mark ‘/ athlon’ leading to confusion amongst the members of the public. The EUIPO was convinced with the arguments put forth in the opposition and ruled in favour of Decathlon.

Athlon, appealed against this decision to the Board of Appeals. The Board stated that since the mark applied for was restricted only to goods covered under Class 25, there cannot arise confusion amongst the marks, and overturned the decision of the EUIPO.

Decathlon appealed against the Board’s decision at the General Court. The Court observed the following:

• Though it can be agreed upon that there is some conceptual and phonetic similarity, the marks cannot be considered to be deceptively similar to one another. This is because the common element between the marks is ‘ATHLON’ which means ‘contest’ in Greek. The Court further observed, that, ‘Athlon’ is used as a suffix to refer to several sports events such as: Skiathlon, quadrathlon, octathlon, tetrathlon, triathlon, aquathlon, heptathlon. One such word is also ‘Decathlon’.
• ‘Decathlon’ refers to the sporting event which includes both track and field events: (first day) 100-metre dash, running long (broad) jump, shot put, high jump, and 400-metre run; (second day) 110-metre hurdles, discus throw, pole vault, javelin throw, and 1,500-metre run.
• Based on the above, the Court concluded that both the marks are of low distinctive character.  Thus, in order to assess the similarity, one needs to look at the marks as a whole.
• The argument and evidence submitted by Decathlon in an attempt to prove that its mark has acquired distinctiveness, was dismissed by the Court.

The Court upheld the Board’s decision and allowed registration of the mark .

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A Sporty Event! - Lexology
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