BNP Paribas was sued by the Mybee company which considered that the filing and use of the sign “MYB’S”, to designate bank cards, would infringe the semi-figurative mark “MyBee SYSTEMS”, registered in class 36 to designate “financial affairs; monetary affairs; financing services”.

The Court rejected Mybee’s claims, considering that there was a low degree of similarity between both signs, no similarity between the services concerned and no likelihood of confusion.

The Court held that, because the opposed trademark was registered for a wide range of services, the comparison had to be done according to services as operated, otherwise it would “confer, because of a too wide filing, a monopoly on services’ titles and not for services for which the owner intended to protect his sign”.