Appeal brought on 17 May 2018 by the European Union Intellectual Property Office against the judgment of the General Court (First Chamber) delivered on 7 March 2018 in Case T-6/17, Equivalenza Manufactory v EUIPO — ITM Entreprises (Black Label by Equivalenza)

(Case C-328/18 P)

Language of the case: Spanish

Parties

Appellant: European Union Intellectual Property Office (represented by: J. Crespo Carrillo, acting as Agent)

Other parties to the proceedings: Equivalenza Manufactory, S.L. and ITM Entreprises SAS

Form of order sought

The appellant claims that the Court of Justice should:

set aside the judgment under appeal;

order the applicant in the proceedings before the General Court to pay the costs.

Grounds of appeal and main arguments

The General Court infringed Article 8(1)(b) of the EU trade mark regulation for the following reasons:

The General Court contradicted itself by acknowledging that there is a visual similarity while at the same time denying that the signs are visually similar;

The General Court erred by confirming without qualification the alleged conceptual difference found by the Board of Appeal;

The General Court erred by examining buying habits in the context of the examination of the similarity of the signs, instead of doing so when carrying out the global assessment of the likelihood of confusion;

The General Court erred by stating that the signs at issue are not similar, despite having acknowledged that their phonetic similarity is average.

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