Case T-281/07 ecoblue AG v Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market, Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, SA, was decided by the Court of First Instance of the European Communities on 12 November 2008. Back in September 2002, ConCapital filed applied to register as a Community trade mark the word sign ECOBLUE for various business and financial services, among others, in Classes 35, 36 and 38; the application was subsequently assigned to ecoblue AG. Banco Bilbao opposed, citing eight earlier Community word marks containing the word 'blue', including the word BLUE itself, for goods and services in Classes 9, 36 and 38, alleging a likelihood of confusion. The Opposition Division upheld the opposition and the First Board of Appeal dismissed ecoblue's appeal, finding that the marks ECOBLUE and BLUE were visually and phonetically similar to a certain extent, that the component 'eco' was not sufficient to distinguish the two signs significantly and that the services for which ecoblue sought registration were identical or similar to those for which Banco Bilbao had registered its marks. In the light of those findings, the likelihood of confusion was established. ecoblue then asked the Court of First Instance to annul the Board's decision.

The Court of First Instance rejected ecoblue's request. After summarising existing law, the Court held that in this case the dissimilarity between the marks at issue, resulting from the presence of the word element 'eco' in ecoblue's mark, was insufficient to counteract the similarity deriving from the identical nature of the most important part of the mark. Also, since the Board took account only of the trade mark BLUE, and not the entire range of Community trade marks registered by Banco Bilbao, it could not be said that the Board had misapplied the law regarding the comparison of an applicant's mark with a series of earlier marks.