The Association of European Trade Mark Owners which incorporates both trade mark owners and professional legal practitioners better known as MARQUES, has featured an intellectual property judgment given by the Maltese Court.
The relative feature published by MARQUES Class 46 editor Jeremy Phillips under the title “Santa Lucia appeal allowed in Malta“ [click on title for direct link with the relative website], is being reproduced hereunder:
“Santa Lucia Products Limited (‘Santa Lucia’), a well established Maltese company with an excellent reputation in the catering sector, applied in June 2009 to register the words ‘Santa Lucia’ as they appeared on a label specifically designed for them for goods in Class 16. The Comptroller of Industrial Property refused the application on the basis that a Spanish registered company, Santa Lucia, S.A. Compania de Seguros, which provided business management, financial services and consultancy, had already registered two allegedly similar trade marks – ‘Santa Lucia, S.A. Compania de Seguros’ and ‘Seguros Santa Lucia’.
Santa Lucia argued that the Comptroller of Industrial Property was wrong to refuse its application: the earlier registered trade marks could not be regraded as similar, especially when considering their respective overall impressions. Even more so, there could never be any possible likelihood that the two trade marks could ever lead to confusion with the applied-for mark, it being well established that the average consumer normally perceives a mark as a whole and does not proceed to analyse its various details.
On 30 November, 2011, the Court of Appeal in Malta allowed Santa Lucia’s appeal.”
Tanti-Dougall & Associates, Advocates which is a member of MARQUES, appeared for the Santa Lucia Products Limited in the relative proceedings.
