Identical trademarks refer to trademarks that use exactly the same trademark text or pattern on the same type of goods. Similar trademarks refer to two trademarks that are similar in shape, pronunciation, and meaning of words, or the composition and color of graphics, or the overall structure of words and graphics, which may easily confuse consumers as to the source of the goods or services.
How to determine if a trademark is identical or similar
1. Appearance of the trademark. That is, the visual images of the words, graphics, or combinations of the two trademarks are observed from the perspective of ordinary consumers to see if they can cause misunderstanding or confusion.
2. Trademark pronunciation. Based on people's hearing, determine whether the two trademarks cause confusion due to similar pronunciation.
3. Trademark meaning. Analyze whether the two trademarks have the same or similar meaning and cause confusion among consumers as to the source of the goods.
1. Identical trademarks
Trademarks are different according to their constituent elements. It can be divided into word trademarks, graphic trademarks, word and graphic combination trademarks, etc. If two trademarks are the same trademark, their constituent elements must be exactly the same.
(1) Trademarks with the same word. The text used as a trademark can be any text such as Chinese, Japanese, English, German, French, ethnic minority languages, etc. It can also be a combination of different ethnic languages. It can be one character, two characters, or three characters. or three or more characters. A trademark with the same word means that the words constituting the trademark not only have the same pronunciation, font shape and meaning, but also have the same font. During trademark examination in my country, except for trademarks composed of Chinese and English words, which are directly searched according to the meaning of the words, other words are searched as graphics after being divided into graphic elements.
(2) The same graphic trademark means that there is no difference in the components, overall structure and visual effects of the two graphic trademarks.
(3) A trademark with the same text and graphics combination means that the text part and the graphic part are exactly the same.
There are strict standards for the same trademark, that is, two trademarksIn comparison, there cannot be any significant difference. It is easier to confirm the same trademark. In practice, it is rare for two trademarks to be the same trademark, and most of them are similar trademarks.
2. Similar trademarks
Similar trademarks differ according to their constituent elements , can also be divided into similar word trademarks, similar graphic trademarks and similar word and graphic combination trademarks. Determining similar trademarks is more complicated. Let’s talk about several issues in similar trademarks.
(1) Text approximation problem. It is easier to distinguish whether a single word trademark is similar, such as "LEI" and "LEI", both of which have similar glyphs or pronunciations. If the significant part of a trademark consisting of two or more words is the same, the two are similar trademarks, such as "Tong*tang" and "Tongren", "Maojia" and "Maojia Hotel", etc. If two trademarks, one in Chinese and one in foreign language, have exactly the same meaning, they will also constitute similar trademarks, such as "dragon" and "DRAGON". In practice, there is another situation where two trademarks have completely different characters, glyphs, and pronunciations, but they are similar in writing form. If ordinary consumers do not compare carefully, they will think that the two are the same trademark. These two trademarks also constitute similar trademarks, such as "Dong-Gong" and "Xun Gong".
(2) Graphic approximation problem. Comparing two graphic trademarks, if the overall structure of the graphic is similar and the visual effect is the same, then the two are similar trademarks. The overall structure refers to the structure of the significant part of the trademark, excluding the background image of the graphic trademark; the same visual effect refers to the intuitive effect of ordinary consumers, and does not refer to the conclusion after careful comparison. During the trademark review, there are large differences of opinion on whether graphic trademarks are similar. The main reason is that everyone has different intuitive feelings about graphics. In judicial practice, judging whether a graphic trademark is similar is mainly based on the general evaluation of ordinary consumers.
Identical or similar trademarks on identical or similar goods and services will cause consumers to misunderstand the source of the goods or services, causing confusion.
