April 2018. On 6 February, the Opposition Division of the European Trademark Office EUIPO upheld a Dutch company’s opposition to an application by Reckitt Benckiser to register its Blue Power trademark for cleaning fluids in Europe.

Older trademark

Global multinational Reckitt had applied for EU protection for its word mark Blue Power 6. But Dutch company Blue Wonder owns an older European trademark registration for its own Blue Wonder cleaning agent.

Risk of confusion

EUIPO concluded that there was a risk consumers would confuse the two products. Although other cleaning agents also feature the word ‘Blue’ in their trademarks to denote the colour of the fluid, Reckitt had not satisfactorily shown that the public would regard the word Blue as purely generic. And because there is also some correspondence between the words ‘Wonder’ and ‘Power’, Blue Power’s registration was turned down.