We are a boutique IP firm located in Osaka, Japan, specializing in trademark, design, specific unfair competition and copyright matters.

Bottom line: The Board found that MONOKURU is not confusingly similar to MONOCLE.

The applicant filed an application for MONOKURU designating organization and management of online shopping mall, etc. in Class 35.

The examiner cited an earlier registration for MONOCLE designating marketing, business administration and management services in Class 35, and refused to register MONOKURU.

The Board found as follows:

The applied-for mark is not a dictionary word and will be recognized as a coined word.  The applied-for mark has sound [mo-no-ku-ru] without any meaning.

The cited mark is an English word, having sound [mo-no-ku-ru].

The marks at issue, clearly different in the last 3-4 letters: KURU and CLE, are visually distinguishable.  The marks share the sound [mo-no-ku-ru] in common.  The applied-for mark has no meaning while the cited mark means “monocle”, thus the two marks are semantically not confusingly similar.

The Board concluded that despite the identical sound, the marks are not confusingly similar because the marks are quite distinguishable in appearance and not similar in connotation, and there is no circumstance that suggests otherwise.

And so the Board reversed the refusal and granted the registration of MONOKURU.