Xiaomi has been denied permission to register an EU trademark for its tablet product ‘Mi Pad’, as European General Court has sided with Apple for their complaint against the Chinese giant as the two disputed trademarks could confuse consumers.
For those who don’t know the details about the case, it all started back in 2014, when Xiaomi filed an application with the EU Intellectual Property Office to register Mi Pad as a trademark. Apple also filed a complaint with the EUIPO, and the office agreed that this could create confusion with consumers making them believe Mi Pad as a variation of the existing iPad trademark.
The case was then sent to the General Court, the EU’s second-highest court, which ruled that it was not in the public interest for Xiaomi to register Mi Pad as a trademark. According to the court:
The dissimilarity between the signs is an issue, resulting from the presence of the additional letter ‘m’ at the beginning of ‘Mi Pad,” is not sufficient to offset the high degree of visual and phonetic similarity between the two signs. The court agreed with the EUIPO’s decision and said English-speaking consumers were likely to understand the prefix ‘mi’ as meaning ‘my’ and therefore pronounce the ‘i’ of Mi Pad and iPad in the same way.
Xiaomi can still appeal the ruling to the Court of Justice of the European Union(Supreme Court of Europe). The company did not say what will be its next move will not be able to register Mi Pad as a trademark in the EU, the company then will be force to rename its tablet if it wants to sell it in the region.
Xiaomi’s expansion into Europe started in November when it began selling its smartphones in Spain. The company has successfully managed to become China’s fourth largest mobile vendor by sales and has launched in many other countries including Indonesia, Vietnam, Russia, the United Arab Emirates, and Ukraine.
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Source: Reuters
