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Bottom line: The Board concluded that the applied-for mark “La chou-chou (stylized)” is not confusingly similar to the cited marks “Petit a’ Chouchou (stylized)” and “chou chou”.

The applicant filed a trademark application for the mark below in Class 25.  The Examiner cited the two marks also shown below and refused the application on the ground of confusing similarity.

[The applied-for mark]


[The cited mark A]


[The cited mark B]


All of the designated goods of the applied-for mark are legally identical with those of each cited mark.  So the question is whether the applied-for mark is distinguishable from the cited marks or not.  The Board observed three marks and found as follows:

[Composition of the applied-for mark]
- The applied-for mark consists of “La” and “chou-chou”.  “La” is a French definite article, and “chou-chou” is a coined word composed of hyphenated “chou”, a French word meaning “cabbage”.
- The mark is unified as a whole and will be pronounced [ra-shu:-shu:].
- The mark is coined word and has no meaning.

[Composition of the cited mark A]
- The mark A is separated into “Petit a’” and “Chouchou”, and “Chouchou” is much larger than “Petit a’”.  “Petit” means “small”, and “chouchou” means “favorite”.
- The mark will be pronounced [pu-ti-a-shu-shu] or [shu-shu].
- The mark has no meaning as the French word “chouchou” is not so familiar to Japanese consumers.

[Composition of the cited mark B]
- The mark B is composed of repetition of a French word “chou” meaning “cabbage”, but “chou chou” has no meaning.
- The mark will be pronounced [shu:-shu:].

[Comparison]
- The three marks above are distinctly different from each other in appearance.  And, the meaning of the three marks is not comparable because the three marks have no particular meaning.
- As compared to the mark A in sound, the applied-for mark is remarkably different in number of moras.
- As compared to the mark B in sound, the applied-for mark has a sound [ra] at the beginning while the mark B not, and such difference is significant.
- Accordingly, the applied-for mark is not confusingly similar to the cited marks.

And so the Board reversed the refusal, and the application for ““La chou-chou (stylized)” was granted for registration.

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