The European Union’s second-highest court, the General Court, ruled that Mi Pad should not be registered as a trademark because of its similarity to Apple’s iPad.
Apple succeeded on Tuesday in preventing Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi from registering its « Mi Pad » tablet computer as an EU trademark because the name was too similar to Apple’s « iPad ».
The European Union’s second-highest court, the General Court, ruled that Mi Pad should not be registered as a trademark because consumers were likely to be confused by the similarity of the signs.
Xiaomi’s Mi Pad and Apple’s iPad are both tablet computers.
« The dissimilarity between the signs at issue, resulting from the presence of the additional letter ‘m’ at the beginning of « Mi Pad », is not sufficient to offset the high degree of visual and phonetic similarity between the two signs, » the Court said in a statement.
Xiaomi filed an application in 2014 with the EU Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) to register Mi Pad as an EU trademark.
Apple subsequently lodged a complaint that the EUIPO upheld in 2016 on the grounds that consumers would think Mi Pad was a variation on Apple’s iPad trademark.
The court agreed with the EUIPO’s decision and said English-speaking consumers were likely to understand the prefix « mi » as meaning « my » and therefore pronounce the « i » of Mi Pad and iPad in the same way.
Xiaomi can appeal against the ruling at the EU’s highest court, the Court of Justice of the European Union.
© Thomson Reuters 2017
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