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Paris Court of Appeal - CLINIQUE LABORATORIES LLC v/ WB TECHNOLOGIES S.A.S


Decision date

2017-06-30

Decision No.

16/10146

Nature

Trademarks

Country

France

Jurisdiction

Paris Court of Appeal

Parties

CLINIQUE LABORATORIES LLC v/ WB TECHNOLOGIES S.A.S



The company WB TECHNOLOGIES (WB T) was represented by Caroline CASALONGA, Attorney at law and Marianne GABRIEL, Attorney at law.

In this case, the company CLINIQUE LABORATORIES LLC (CLINIQUE) lodged an appeal against the opposition decision issued by the Director of the INPI rejecting the opposition filed by it against the application for registration of the word mark LA CLINIQUE DIGITALE.

CLINIQUE LABORATORIES considered that the application LA CLINIQUE DIGITALE would infringe its earlier mark CLINIQUE. The company CLINIQUE challenged only the comparison of signs made by the director of the INPI. The company WBT requested the dismissal of the appeal, arguing in particular that the application trademark LA CLINIQUE DIGITALE should be considered as a whole.

The Paris Court of Appeal rejected CLINIQUE’s appeal, following the arguments developed for WBT by CASALONGA, considering that if the term CLINIQUE appeared distinctive in relation to the designated products, it was also the case of the term DIGITALE when designating cosmetic products, that the sign LA CLINIQUE DIGITALE should be considered as a whole and that, therefore, despite the similarity of certain products covered by the marks at issue (including cosmetics), the consumer could not misunderstand the respective origin of these products, given the distinct perception of the signs in question.

It should be known that the same day, the Court of Appeal of Paris rendered a contrary decision regarding the appeal lodged against the opposition decision concerning the application trademark CLINIQUE DIGITALE.