On November 18, 2008 The Section of Appeals of the State Patent Bureau answered the opposition No. 2159 of the interested person NOVARTIS AG regarding the refusal of granting protection for ZAKLADY FARMACEUTYCZNE „POLPHARMA“ SA. trademark „QUETRAL“ international registration No. 943567 in the Republic of Lithuania.
The Section of Appeals stated, that comparable marks „QUETIREL“ and „QUETRAL“ are much alike by visual impression, since both words are of similar length (8 and 7 letters), first four letters are identical and endings are similar (-REL and –RAL). What is more, letter „I“, which is in the middle of mark of the interested person, does not have any influence in stressing the distinction from the protested mark. Due to visual and phonetic similarity of marks (semantically marks are not compared), the Section of Appeals concluded, that the protested trademark „QUETRAL“ is misleadingly similar to the trademark „QUETIREL“ of the interested person.