The Supreme Administrative Court has upheld the Patent Appeals Court's decision rejecting an application for the trademark GOD NATT (Swedish for "Good Night") in respect of fruit juices on the basis that it is confusingly similar to the trademark GOD MORGON (Swedish for "Good Morning"), a mark well-known in respect of the same goods.

The Supreme Administrative Court agreed with the lower court which had ruled that, despite the phonetic and graphic differences between the respective marks, their linguistic and conceptual relationship was such that their use on the same goods could lead to the conclusion that they had the same trade origin and result in confusion.

We question whether the Court would have reached the same decision if GOD MORGON were not a well-known mark.

June 1994 Index