Apple Inc. Won TIPO in an Administrative Lawsuit
2011/03/08 TaiwanThe trademark dispute between Apple Inc. and the Taiwan Intellectual Property Office (TIPO) regarding the marks “Apple*Love” and “APPLE CENTER” had been finalized by the Intellectual Property Court (IPC) to a decision in favor of Apple Inc. on May 27, 2010, and the mark “Apple*Love” (reg. no.: 1293532) was cancelled.
In May 2007, Mr. Huang filed a trademark application bearing the mark “Apple*Love” with the designated services of “shopping mall, mail order, TV shopping, online shopping”. The application was then approved for registration and published by the TIPO. Upon acknowledgement of the publication, Apple Inc. considered that the mark “Apple*Love” was similar/identical to its mark “APPLE CENTER”. As such similarity was likely to cause confusion to relevant consumers, Apple Inc. filed an opposition against the trademark “Apple*Love” in response. However, the opposition was later rejected by the TIPO.
After reviewing the relevant facts, the IPC considered that the TIPO arbitrarily decided that the marks “Apple*Love” and “APPLE CENTER” were not similar/identical to each other merely based on the difference of word structure and capitalization, which should be erroneous.
The judgment of the IPC indicated that both marks, “Apple*Love” and “APPLE CENTER”, have the designated goods/services in relation to computers; as a result, the literal meaning of “Apple*Love” was likely to cause relevant consumers to misinterpret the goods/services of the two marks are from the same source or provided by the same company or its authorized distributor/affiliate. Hence, the trademark “Apple*Love” was in violation of the Taiwan’s Trademark Act and should not be allowed for registration.
Based on the reasons above, the IPC reached a judgment notwithstanding the decisions of the TIPO and the Committee of Appeal of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and indicated that the TIPO should cancel the trademark “Apple*Love” pursuant to the judgment.
Reg. no. 1293532 filed by Mr. Huang Reg. no. 35458 filed by Apple Inc.
Organized and translated by James Tsai
International Affairs
