INSTITUT EUROPEEN D ADMINISTRATION DES AFFAIRES, INSEAD, ASSOCIATION VERSUS FULLSTACK EDUCATION PRIVATE LIMITED & ANR

The Delhi high court ordered to quash the registration of the trademark ‘INSAID’ owing to its similarity to the petitioner‘s existing earlier trademark ‘INSEAD’, and the similarity of the services. It was observed that both the rival marks are devices marks and if regarded as device marks, they are dissimilar with no chance of confusion but the acronyms INSAID and INSEAD form the prominent parts of both the rival marks, exhibiting marked phonetic similarity and therefore, mere fact, both the marks are device marks, cannot detract from the confusingly similar nature of the two marks.

Furthermore, The Delhi High Court directed to The Registrar that “where an application is submitted for registration of a mark which involves a word, then, even at the preliminary stage, a word mark search as well as a phonetic search should be conducted, so that the possible marks which are phonetically similar to the mark applied for, are thrown up as suggested results”.

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