Glossary
French: similarité des signes
The similarity of signs is assessed on three levels — visual, phonetic and conceptual — the standard triad of French and EU trademark analysis, familiar to US practitioners as the “appearance, sound and meaning” (sight-sound-meaning) prong of the DuPont factors. What differs is the discipline of the exercise: French decisions systematically dissect each level in turn.
The comparison considers in particular the beginnings of the two signs — are they identical? — whether the later sign reproduces all the letters of the earlier mark in the same order, and the distinctive or non-distinctive character of the shared elements (shared descriptive elements weigh less).
Phonetic similarity takes into account the common syllables, the number of syllables, the rhythm, the length of the words, and any assonances reproduced in the signs. See the EBITDA / EBTILDA decision discussed under trademark imitation for a worked example: same three-beat rhythm, common beginnings and endings, difference buried mid-sign.
The conceptual comparison looks at the meaning of the words: do the terms belong to the same lexical field? Are they synonyms? Is there an intellectual link between them? If so, conceptual similarity may exist — and it can even operate across languages, as when “PETIT DÉJEUNER DE LA PEAU” was held to conflict with “SKIN BREAKFAST.”
Similarity of signs is one half of the likelihood of confusion equation, alongside the similarity of goods and services. Both are screened before filing through a similarity search — see trademark clearance search.