Court of Justice (Third Chamber) 12 June 2007, C-334/05 P (European Union Intellectual Property Office v Shaker di L. Laudato & C. Sas.)

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In an appeal concerning the refusal to register a figurative Community trade mark containing the word elements 'Limoncello della Costiera Amalfitana' and 'shaker' against the earlier Spanish word mark 'LIMONCHELO', the Court of Justice (Third Chamber) held that the Court of First Instance erred in law by limiting its likelihood-of-confusion analysis under Article 8(1)(b) of Regulation No 40/94 to a purely visual assessment based on the dominant figurative element of the composite mark, without conducting a global assessment encompassing the phonetic and conceptual dimensions of all components. The Court confirmed that, while the overall impression of a composite mark may in certain circumstances be dominated by one or more components, it is only where all other components are negligible that the similarity assessment may be conducted solely on the basis of the dominant element. Accordingly, the Court set aside the judgment of the Court of First Instance and referred the case back for a proper global assessment of the likelihood of confusion.AI