On November 27, 2008, The Section of Appeals of the State Patent Bureau has dismissed the opposition No. 2051 of the interested person INDUSTRIA DE DISENO TEXTIL, SA (INDITEX, SA) regarding the registration of trademark „ŽARA“(Reg. No. 54690) owned by UAB "SMS-ELIGITA".
There were compared two verbal trademarks “ZARA” and “ŽARA”. The Section of Appeals stated that if compared visually opposed trademark and trademark of the interested person are compounded of the same length words in which letters are set out in the same way and only the first letters differ. And it is the reason why mentioned words are considered visually similar. Since the mentioned words are short, the pronunciation will differ due to the sound of the first letters and the accentuation of the words. Semantic meanings of the words are different as well. As a result, the Section of Appeals stated that to recognize trademarks as similar only visual similarity is not enough.