On November 6, 2008, the Section of Appeals of the State Patent Bureau has dismissed the opposition No. 2199 of the interested person INDUSTRIA DE DISENO TEXTIL, SA (INDITEX, SA) regarding the refusal of trademark „EZARA“ (registration No.56710) of UAB „EZARA“.
The Section of Appeals stated, that trademarks „ZARA“ and „EZARA“ could be declared as phonetically similar, if only verbal elements were compared by the aforesaid criterion. However, verbal element in the opposed mark is composed with the graphic one, therefore, visual dissimilarity of trademarks emphasizes the distinction of their verbal elements. As trademarks are different visually, their phonetic similarity is weakened too. Thus, the Section of Appeals concluded, that the opposed trademark „EZARA“ is not misleadingly similar to the trademark „ZARA“ of the interested person.