On February 05, 2009, the Section of Appeals of the State Patent Bureau has dismissed the opposition No. 2164 of the interested person TAIGA Aktiebolag against the validation of trademark “SAIGA” owned by UAB “Sabelijos prekyba”.
It was stated that particularly comparable marks “TAIGA” and “SAIGA” have visual similarity, however phonetically comparable marks are not similar due to different pronunciation: since words are short and compounded of two syllables and four sounds the pronunciation clearly differs because of the sound of the two first letters “T” and “S” and also because of the accentuation of the words’. Also while comparing words semantically, both words are Lithuanian and the meaning is known for Lithuanian consumers. Therefore words are not similar semantically and phonetically and it is not enough to recognize trademarks as similar only due to visual similarity. Consequently the opposition was dismissed.