{"id":947,"date":"2017-08-24T06:51:14","date_gmt":"2017-08-24T06:51:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=947"},"modified":"2023-11-24T06:02:29","modified_gmt":"2023-11-24T06:02:29","slug":"sakura-blossoming-into-registration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.veralaw.com\/?p=947","title":{"rendered":"SAKURA: BLOSSOMING INTO REGISTRATION"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Which party has a right to the trademark registration of SAKURA? Will the registration of SAKURA for goods in class 7 bar a subsequent trademark application of SAKURA for goods also in class 7?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">In its Decision dated 20 June 2017, the IPO Bureau of Legal Affairs dismissed the Opposition filed by KENSONIC, INC. (\u201cOpposer\u201d) against the trademark application filed by E-FENG MACHINERY ENGINEERING CO., LTD. (\u201cRespondent-applicant\u201d) for the mark \u201cSAKURA\u201d for goods in class 07.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The IPO Bureau of Legal Affairs further stated that although the Opposer\u2019s and Respondent-Applicant\u2019s mark are similar as they both use the word SAKURA, the similarity in the appearance of the applied mark to another mark does not automatically bar its registration by another. \u201cA similar mark may be registered when the goods upon which the applied mark will be used is different or non-competing to the goods of another such that it cannot be said that the goods of the latter is manufactured or sourced from another or that there is a connection between them\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The IPO Bureau of Legal Affairs pointed out that the Opposer\u2019s mark SAKURA is used on \u201camplifiers, DVD player, VCD player, tape deck, tuner, equalizer, mixer, digital voice recorder, video disc recorder\u201d under Class 9. On the other hand, Respondent-Applicant\u2019s mark SAKURA is being applied for use on \u201celevator; conveyer, fuzzy elevator; escalator; oil traction machine; traction machine; moving walk; agricultural lift; lift; lift (skiing excluded); loading platform (part of machine); pneumatic tunnel carrier; auto loading machine; tube conveyors; pneumatic escalator; parking lift\u201d under Class 07. As such, the goods are unrelated or non-competing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">As a final note, the IPO Bureau of Legal Affairs noted that the mark SAKURA has not been exclusively appropriated by Opposer. \u201cSAKURA is commonly known as the \u201ccherry tree\u201d which is famous in Japan. As shown in the IPOPHL\u2019s Trademark Database, the mark SAKURA has been registered in various classes by different entities. As such it is considered a weak mark that has no capacity to identify strongly a single original [sic] or source of goods or services. In this case, when we hear the word SAKURA it does not exclusively suggest that it comes from Opposer or it refers only to its products alone\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The Opposer appealed the aforesaid decision to the Office of the Director of the Bureau of Legal Affairs.<\/span><\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Which party has a right to the trademark registration of SAKURA? Will the registration of SAKURA for goods in class 7 bar a subsequent trademark application of SAKURA for goods also in class 7? In its Decision dated 20 June 2017, the&#8230;<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ip"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.veralaw.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.veralaw.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.veralaw.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.veralaw.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.veralaw.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=947"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.veralaw.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3164,"href":"https:\/\/www.veralaw.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947\/revisions\/3164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.veralaw.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.veralaw.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.veralaw.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}