By Janine Hollesen and Donvay Wegierski, Directors

In April, the EU court ruled that the degree of similarity between the marks MASSI and MESSI is not sufficiently high to accept that the relevant public may believe that the goods come from the same source. It went further saying that a significant portion of the public would in fact associate the term MESSI with the famous footballer and will therefore perceive MASSI as being conceptually different.

The EU trade mark owner of MASSI for clothing, shoes, bicycle helmets, protective clothing and gloves had previously opposed Barcelona and Argentinian football player Messi’s application for MESSI due to their visual and phonetic similarity in 2013 which opposition was upheld in the first round. The appeal court overturned the ruling allowing Messi’s marks to be registered. With the FIFA 2018 WORLD CUP underway – with a rather dubious start for Messi – this successful appeal favouring Messi is no doubt welcomed.

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