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Bottom line: The Board found that GOLCIMA is confusingly similar to CORSIMA.

The applicant filed an application for GOLCIMA in standard character designating pharmaceutical preparations for human use.  The examiner refused to register the mark, citing CORSIMA also designating pharmaceutical preparations.

The Board noted that the applied-for mark will be pronounced [go-ru-shi-ma] and has no specific meaning, whereas the cited mark will be pronounced [ko:-shi-ma] or [ko-ru-shi-ma] and has no specific meaning.

The Board noted that the marks share -O- and -IMA, and the first letters G and C are visually similar with or without hook-like stroke.  The different letters -LC- and -RS- are the third and fourth letters of seven-letter word, which do not leave much impression to consumer.  Overall, the Board found that the visual similarity outweighs the differences.

As for the comparison of the sound, the cited mark can be pronounced in two ways.  Comparing [go-ru-shi-ma] and [ko-ru-shi-ma], the Board found that the first sound [go] and [ko], the only difference, is phonetically similar and the rest sound is identical.  As for [go-ru-shi-ma] and [ko:-shi-ma], the latter half is identical but the beginning [go-ru] and [ko:] are sufficient to distinguish the marks.

Overall, the Board found that the marks are not comparable semantically, similar visually and one of the probable sound of the cited mark is phonetically similar to that of the applied-for mark, and concluded that the marks are confusingly similar.

And so the Board affirmed the refusal.