Novartis Loses Bid for ‘Akanto’ EU Trademark Registration

Novartis AG can’t get a European Union registration for Akanto, a trademark for pharmaceutical preparations, because it’s confusingly similar to another pharmaceutical company’s registration, an EU court ruled.

The EU General Court Sept. 25 upheld a decision by the EU Intellectual Property Office to reject Novartis’ application. Italy-based Chiesi Farmaceutici SpA already owned an EU trademark registration for its asthma drug, Kantos, and opposed Novartis’s application.

Both marks have six letters, and share five of them in the same order, making the words visually very similar, the EU court said on appeal. The pronunciation of the two words are also ...