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Bottom line: The Board found Madre is not similar to stylized Madre:X.

The applicant applied for Madre in standard character designating cosmetics, cosmetic preparations for skin care, cosmetic body creams in Class 3.

The examiner cited stylized Madre:X shown below designating cosmetics, etc. in Class 3 and retail/wholesale services for cosmetics, etc. in Class 35.

<Cited mark>

The Board analyzed each mark as follows:

- The applied-for mark consists of Madre, which means mother in Spanish or Italian.  But in view of literacy of these languages in Japan, “madre” is not familiar to public.  Traders and consumers will recognize it as a fancy word.  Thus, the applied-for mark has no particular meaning and sound [ma-do-re].

- The cited mark is presented in a serif typeface.  The height of the first stroke of X is even with that of M and d on the left, and the second stroke of X is curved to reach below e on the left.  With such representation, the cited mark will be viewed as a whole, bearing sound [ma-do-re-e-kku-su] and no particular meaning.

The Board then made a comparison of the marks and found as follows:

- Visually, the composition of the marks is clearly different and is not confusingly similar.

- Phonetically, the sound of the marks is different in its composition and length, and is distinguishable from each other.

- Semantically, the marks are not comparable as neither has particular meaning.

- Overall, the marks at issue are not confusingly similar in terms of appearance, sound or connotation, and there is no likelihood of confusion even when used for identical or similar goods.

And so the Board reversed the refusal.