Tigris V. Puma – Battle of the Cats

The Israeli Deputy Trademark Registrar has ruled that the trademark application consisting of a Tigris figure considered as infringing Puma’s trademark in class 25 and therefore cannot be eligible for registration.

City Wash LTD is an Israeli company who manufactures different kinds of clothing. City Wash has filed a trademark application for a combination word-image mark consisting of a silhouette of a Tiger and the word “Tigris” which is tiger in Hebrew language.

PUMA, AG, is a well known German clothing company who manufactures sports clothing under the PUMA logo.

Puma has filed an opposition claiming that the Tiger mark was confusingly similar to their puma logo, and that it was non-distinctive and constitutes a dilution of Puma’s trademark rights.
Puma claimed that the mark was non-distinctive, confusingly similar to Puma’s marks and a dilution of the Puma’s mark.

The Deputy Registrar has accepted the opposition and rejected the application on the grounds of likely of confusion between the marks.

Point for thinking: It is interesting to know that there are other sports brads who uses the silhouette of a wild cat in a similar movement, that coexist with the PUMA trademark, such as Slazenger and Jaguar. It seems that no one have a monopoly over the silhouette of a wild cat in regard to sport clothing. In addition, we hardly think that there is any likely of confusion between the marks.