The case involved telcos Eiretel, Airtel Movil and Alianza Internacional De Redes Telefonicas. Eiretel applied two years ago to register its name as a trade mark in respect of telecommunications services. Airtel and Alianza, owners of the trade mark “Airtel”, jointly opposed the application.
The two companies claimed that the “Eiretel” and “Airtel” marks were phonetically almost identical, and that they covered similar products.
They argued that, although the correct pronunciation of the geographical name Eire is with two syllables, most people in Britain are not familiar with Irish pronunciation. Therefore there would be a risk that both Eiretel and Airtel would be pronounced in an almost identical way.
The opponents also claimed that the word Eiretel is devoid of distinctive character (Eire means Ireland and “tel” is a common abbreviation for telecoms), and should not be registered under the Trade Marks Act 1994.
However M. Reynolds rejected the opponents’ claims, reasoning that there “would be fairly wide understanding of the meaning of ‘Eire’ within the UK”, and that the phonetic similarity was unlikely to create consumer confusion.
This is because “the average consumer [in the telecoms market] will not come to a decision without due consideration and careful assessment of the available options.”
Reynolds also noted in his decision that there were “strong visual dissimilarities” between the marks.