Four applicants (Nissan Motors Company, Herman International Industries Incorporated and two Israeli companies) filed 7 trademark application for “INFINITY” in Israel – all of the applications include class 9 of the international classification.
According to the Israeli law and regulations a competition procedure is initiated unless the applicants can agree amongst themselves and draft a coexistence agreement. However, this agreement still must be approved by the Israeli Patent Authority (IPA).
The four sides went into negotiations and they agreed on the lists of goods and services.
The Israel Patent Authority court DID NOT accept the agreements stating the court is not a “rubber stamp” that automatically approve the sides agreements and pointed defects in the notices sent to court, such as that Nissan Motors Company did not filed a signed copy of the agreement with one of the Israeli companies.
Due to the extremely rare situation of 4 sides the IP Judge, Mrs. Yaara Shoshani-Kaspi, added a table summarizing the decision. Although the use of tables to compare trademarks is a common practice in the IPA court decisions, those table usually depict the facts of the case and not the Judge’s decision.
The Judge rules that Nissan Motors Company’s applications will continue examination and is exempt from the competition procedure due to the noticeable difference in the lists of goods and services. One of the Israeli companies forfeited it application and assigned it to the second Israeli company which will now be in competition procedure with Herman International Industries Incorporated.
Israeli Trademark application: 242419, 241921, 198182, 198183, 256544, 203981, 199661