經通國際智慧產權事務所

On March 26, 2009, the Taiwan Intellectual Property Office’s (TIPO) decision of rejecting the trademark opposition filed by Singapore Airline against the trademark registration bearing “New Air Station” (or “” in Chinese; “” refers to “new”, while “” refers to “air station”) was upheld by the Intellectual Property Court.

Mr. Jin Siou Wen (an individual) registered the trademark bearing “New Air Station” in Taiwan. As a result, Singapore Airline filed an opposition against the registration, claiming that the consumers might be confused about these two marks with both containing the same Chinese Characters “” and “”.

Nevertheless, the Court held that each mark should be compared as a whole and not dissected into parts. Moreover, apart from the mere visual similarities between these two Chinese marks, the Court placed greater emphasis on the different “meanings” of these two marks “New Air Station” and “Singapore Airline”. Hence it is concluded that no matter these two Chinese or English marks, their distinct literal meanings and interpretations should not cause any confusions to the general public.

Furthermore, based on the Google’s online keyword search, “Singapore Airline” and “New Air Station” have different results about the reports of its Singapore Airline Company and other new airports. Accordingly, it evidences that the general public is able to distinguish the different sources of these two marks. Thus, the appellant’s claims were rejected by the Court.

Organized and translated by Tony Chen

International Affairs