BEVERLY HILLS—Beverly Hills Polo Club, a US-based fashion brand was victorious in its opposition of Polo Club Saint-Tropez’s, a French polo club, European Union Trademark (EUTM) application for its logo inside a European Union (EU) General Court. The US fashion brand argued that the confusion could have resulted due to the resemblance to its earlier logo (below right).

Source : http://www.mondaq.com/x/557016/Trademark/Beverly+Hills+Polo+Club+ridesoff+another+polo+logo+ar+EU+Court

The EUTM application filed by Polo Club was for specific class 3 goods such as soaps, perfumes, perfumery; essential oils, cosmetics, hair lotions; dentifrices. It also included a few class 41 services such as raining, education, entertainment; arranging and conducting of conferences, editing of video tapes, radio and television programmes, radio programmes, radio and television entertainment among many others.

The BHPC strengthened their argument by providing evidence of differences between the logos by the initial evidence submission deadline. The BHPC submitted additional evidence in response to Polo Club’s proof of use request within the deadline for responding to a request.

The Opposition Division rejected both evidence submissions. Initial evidence was deemed insufficient to demonstrate differences in the logos and the latter evidence was rejected because it was submitted after the initial deadline.

The Fifth Board of Appeal annulled the Opposition Division’s decision. Referring to previous EU Court decisions, the Court upheld the Board of Appeal’s decision on certain grounds.