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Bottom line: The Board found “SD SMART” logo not confusingly similar to “Smart”.

The applicant filed a trademark application for “SD SMART” logo shown below designating IC memory cards, IC memory card readers and writers, personal computers, etc. in Class 9.  The examiner refused to register the mark, citing the following marks; “SMART”, “SMART and its transliteration in katakana” and “Smart” for goods in Class 9.

<Applied-for mark>

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

The Board analyzed the applied-for mark and found as follows:

- The applied-for mark is composed of stylized “SD” and “SmART”.  In the word “SmART”, the lower-case “m” is written in the same height as the upper-case “S”, “A”, “R” and “T”.  “SD” is written as wide as “SmART”.  The mark appears to be unified as a whole.
- The stylized “SD” is a known mark to traders and consumers to some extent and have a strong impression as a source identifier.
- “smart” is commonly used in the computer industry to indicate “computerized” or “having a high information processing function”.  So, “SmART” does not function as a source identifier at all or not so much if any.
- Accordingly, the applied-for mark as a whole or the stylized “SD” function as a source identifier.
- Therefore, the applied-for mark is not similar to the cited marks.

And so the Board reversed the refusal, and granted registration of “SD SmART” logo.