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.”
That cross-language dimension is one of the sharpest differences from a purely US analysis: because the EU is a multilingual market and France sits inside it, a mark’s meaning can be judged against how it will be understood by a French-speaking, English-speaking or bilingual relevant public, not just against a single national language. A term that looks entirely unrelated to an English-speaking eye can still be found conceptually similar to a French term once the office or court establishes that a meaningful share of the relevant public will translate one into the other.
None of the three levels is decisive on its own, and a sign can be found similar even where it is dissimilar on one or two of them, provided the remaining level is strong enough — a global assessment, echoing the US “sight, sound and meaning” analysis, where no single sense carries automatic weight either. A common pattern in French and EU decisions is visual dissimilarity offset by strong phonetic similarity (or vice versa): two signs that look nothing alike on the page can still be held confusingly similar if pronounced almost identically. Conversely, a strong conceptual difference can sometimes neutralize visual or phonetic closeness — a doctrine EU practice calls “neutralization.”
US practice examines the same three senses but tends to blend them into a single “overall commercial impression” reached holistically, often in one paragraph of a TTAB opinion. French and EU decisions, by contrast, methodically address each level in its own subsection, reach an explicit conclusion on each (identical / similar / dissimilar, often with a qualifier such as “weak” or “average” degree of similarity), and only then synthesize the three findings. For US counsel used to a more narrative TTAB-style analysis, briefing a French or EU opposition means anticipating this three-part scoring structure.
Consider a US company’s mark NOVA-TECH facing an earlier French mark NOVATEK, both covering software services. Visually, the signs share the same eight-letter core (NOVAT), with only a hyphen and terminal letters differing. Phonetically, in French pronunciation the two are close to indistinguishable — same number of syllables, same rhythm. Conceptually, neither term has an obvious meaning in French, so the comparison is neutral rather than differentiating. With visual and phonetic similarity both likely found high, and no conceptual difference to offset them, an examiner or tribunal would probably conclude the signs are similar overall.
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 as part of a trademark clearance search, and both resurface if the applicant later finds itself responding to a trademark opposition before the INPI or the EUIPO.