In Judgment T-462/09, the General Court had to examine an appeal by German CTM Applicant August Storck KG, famous for its delicious sweets - and for TM lawyers those gave way to CTM judgments just as much as a treat such as here and here- against the Italian Opponent Radiotelevisione SpA (RAI) .

The GC confirmed the likelihood of confusion, on the grounds of Article 8 (1) (b) CTMR between the applied for mark RAGOLIZIA on the basis of earlier word mark FAVOLIZIA.

The applicant’s confectionery, pastry are identically contained in the list of goods of the earlier mark. The opponent’s confectionery are “sweets and other confections collectively”. It is a set of food items that are rich in sugar and may include substances rich in artificial sweeteners as well. Confectionery items include sweets, lollipops, candy bars, chocolate and other sweet items of snack foods. These form a broad category including the applicant’s chocolate and chocolate goods and are thus identical.

Both marks are word marks and consist of the same number of letters, nine. The marks have a similar structure: both marks share the letters “-AOLIZIA” and they differ in two letters; the first letter of the earlier mark is the letter “F”, while the first one of the contested mark is the letter “R”. Furthermore, the third letter of the earlier mark is the letter “V”, whereas the third one of the contested mark is the letter “g”. Thus there is a medium degree of visual and aural similarity.

From a conceptual point of view, even if part of the relevant EU public understands that ‘FAVO’ refers to the English word ‘favour’, the eventual conceptual difference which not be sufficient to avoid a risk of confusion.