Uber won an opposition in the UK against a trademark application ‘ChefUber’ applied for in class 35 – recruitment services in the catering trade.

Against this application, Uber invoked several of its earlier UBER trademarks for the same class including the UberEats trademark used for food delivery. According to the company its marks are similar to the later one in a greate scale.

The Applicant argued that there is no similarity due to the fact that the first part of its mark is Chef, which makes the sign to stand alone.

The Patent Office came to the conclusion that the services between the trademarks at hand are similar or identical.

When it comes to the sign, the Office considered them confusingly similar. The fact that there is a Chef in front of Uber in the later mark is not enough to overcome this possibility because this word is not distinctive and it is even descriptive for the listed services.

What’s more, the Office considered that the later sign tries to take advantage of the Uber reputation as a brand on the market.

Source: WIPR.