The

Court of Justice of the European Union

(CJEU) ruled this Thursday that Argentine soccer player

Lionel Messi

can register

articles and clothing

with the "

MESSI

"

brand

, thus annulling a resolution of the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO ) which saw a

conflict with the "MASSI" brand.

With this ruling, which is final, the CJEU thus dismissed the appeals filed by the EUIPO and by the aforementioned Spanish company against a previous one of the General Court that authorized the soccer player in April 2018 to register the trademark "MESSI" for articles and sports apparel.

The Court of Justice found that the General Court "took due account of the perception of the MASSI and MESSI marks by the entire relevant public when it found that EUIPO had erroneously concluded that the use of the MESSI mark for the products in question could give rise to place at risk of confusion with the MASSI trademarks among the relevant public, "said the CJEU in a statement.

The origin of the dispute dates back to August 2011, when the FC Barcelona forward requested the EUIPO to register the trademark with his surname and an associated logo.

In November of that same year,

Jaime Masferrer Coma

, one of the

leaders of the Casa Masferrer firm

that produces bicycles, helmets and sportswear under the "

MASSI

"

brand

, opposed the registration of the player's surname before the EUIPO, considering that it existed "

likelihood of confusion

"between the two marks.

The EUIPO upheld this opposition in 2013 and Lionel Messi filed an appeal against the resolution, which that Office rejected in April 2014, essentially considering that there was a risk of confusion.

The EU Intellectual Property Office then concluded that "

the trademarks in question are similar because their dominant elements

, made up of the terms 'MASSI' and 'MESSI', are practically identical in graphic and phonetic terms", so that a eventual conceptual difference would only be perceived by football fans.

The

Rosario soccer player then appealed to the General Court

, which agreed with him in 2018, estimating that "the popularity of the soccer player neutralized the visual and phonetic similarities between the two signs and ruled out any risk of confusion" for being a "

character public "of" world fame

.

This argument was fully supported this Thursday by the CJEU which, in addition, stressed that the logos of the brands "

MASSI" and "MESSI" are "conceptually different

" and therefore dismissed the two appeals filed against the judgment of the General Court, that gave the reason to the footballer.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

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