Amazon defended its SPARK brand in the UK

Amazon won a dispute before the UK Patent Office against a word trademark application for “SPARKK” in class 9 for goods including computer application software, mobile applications, and software for social networking services.

The opposition was based on the earlier trademark “Amazon Spark” for the same class of goods.

The UKIPO upheld the opposition stating that although Amazon is the first word in the earlier mark, Spark has a roughly equal contribution to the overall impression of the sign.

What’s more, the additional letter K in the later mark is not enough to overcome the possible consumer confusion. This is supported by the fact that Amazon is a distinctive and well-known mark and because of this consumers may think that SPARKK is just another sub-brand related to “Amazon Spark” .

Source: WIPR.