February 25, 2009, the Section of Appeals of Lithuanian State Patent Bureau has satisfied the opposition No. 2215 of the interested person NOVARTIS AG against the validation of the International trademark “DIOSART” registration No. 955684 owned by ZAKLADY FARMACEYTYCZNE “POLPHARMA” SPOLKA AKCYJNA.
The Section of Appeals stated that the trademarks “DIOCERT” and “DIOSART” are visually similar due to the common visual impression. These trademarks are compounded of the identical length (namely, of the 7 letters). The beginning of the words and the first syllable DIO – and the ending –RT are coincident. Therefore comparable marks have been stated being phonetically similar. Semantically words DIOCERT and DIOSART are not comparable because the meaning of these words is unknown for the Lithuanian consumers. Consequently the Section of Appeals decided that opposed trademark “DIOSART” is misleadingly similar to the trademark “DIOCERT” of the interested person.