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Bottom line: The Board found “HAPPINESS with its transliteration in katakana” not similar to “happiness from café” logo.

The applicant filed an application for “HAPPINESS with its transliteration in katakana” designating coffee, cocoa, tea, unroasted coffee, etc. in Class 30.  The examiner refused the application, citing a registration for “happiness from café” logo shown below designating coffee, cocoa, tea and unroasted coffee in Class 30.

<Applied-for mark>

<Cited mark>

The designated goods of the applied-for mark are partially identical with those of the cited mark.  So, the question is whether the applied-for mark is similar to the cited mark or not.

The Board analyzed the marks and found as follows:

<As for the applied-for mark>
The applied-for mark is composed of a dictionary word “HAPPINESS” and its transliteration in katakana, and has sound and meaning corresponding thereto.

<As for the cited mark>
- The cited mark consists of several concentric circles, happiness, hc, from café, smiley face and dots, and will be regarded unified as a whole.
- “happiness from café” will be regarded as a whole because “happiness” and “from café” are arranged within the same circle.  Therefore, the mark will have sound and meaning corresponding to “happiness from café”.

<Comparison>
- The marks are significantly different in appearance.
- The marks are phonetically different with or without “from café”.
- The marks are semantically different as well with or without “from café”.
- Therefore, the marks are not similar to each other.

And so the Board reversed the refusal, and granted registration of “HAPPINESS with its transliteration in katakana”.