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Juan Francisco Campuzano Vélez – [email protected] Friday, January 29, 2021
The requesting mark is a patient registration and information platform that shows the medical status of a relative in procedures
A new case of failed opposition. The company Clínica de Otorrinolaringología de Occidente SA was presented to the Superintendency of Industry and Commerce (SIC) to request the registration of the WaitApp (mixed) brand, in order to distinguish products in Class 9 of the International Classification of Nice, specifically surgical data processing software.
That registration was opposed by the company WhatsApp INC., Owner of WhatsApp Messenger, the instant messaging application for smartphones.
According to the digital giant, the requested sign reproduces almost identically the word element of the trademarks it already protects. That, added to that, the fact that it tries to identify products in international Class 9, makes the final consumer, when seeing the brands, think that they come from the same business origin, or that the services provided by the applicant are provided by the opponent.
In addition to the direct confusion and the false origin that the opponent insists that the materialized requested registration would cause on the public, the products that it would protect, for WhatsApp INC., Are the same: software and software applications, so they deduce that there are a certain analogy between said goods and activities that reaffirms the confusibility of origin.
The Otorhinolaryngology Clinic of Occidente SA responded that the competing brands not only do not present any similarity in any of the levels of the brand collation, on the understanding that the only particle they share is ‘App’, which is generic and commonly used Class 9 products, but also, thanks to the very specific commercial market niche of the requested sign and the commercial activity of its applicant, it was clear that the application for registration had to be granted.
Besides, they insist that WhatsApp INC. misinterpreted the rationale behind the classification to which the application was assigned, since the products, although they use software to operate, are not even close to sharing functional similarities with the product protected by the opponent.
WaitApp, the applicant said, aims to provide detailed, real-time information on the health status of a patient entering a surgical procedure. “They are the relatives or companions of a patient, who“ wait ”for their relative to be discharged after a surgical intervention.
After weighing the arguments, the SIC indicated that there is no similarity or identity between the signs confronted before the body capable of generating a risk of confusion or association. Consequently, it decided to grant the WaitApp (mixed) trademark registration for a period of 10 years.
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