On 5 March 2015, the German Federal Court of Justice (I ZR 161/13) issued a ruling that two wordmarks that consist of the same three letters, albeit in a different order (here: IPS and ISP), might lead to confusion as to the origin of goods and services sold under these marks. In particular, the Court noted that the pronunciation of the individual letters in their given order had the same sequence of vowels (here: i-e-e, German pronunciation). Thus, the Court found there to be a likelihood of confusion between the two wordmarks that were both used for IT services.
Continue Reading Likelihood of Confusion in the Case of Wordmarks that Use Identical Letters, Albeit in a Different Order – IPS/ISP