Case No. IP-2014-000051

International Healthcare Ltd v Asda Stores Ltd [2012] EWCA Civ 24, [2012] F.S.R. 19, as follows;[51] The general approach to be adopted in assessing the requirement of a likelihood of confusion under the Regulation and Directive has been considered in a number of important decisions of the Court of Justice…[52] On the basis of these and other cases the Trade Marks Registry has developed the following useful and accurate summary of key principles sufficient for the determination of many of the disputes coming before it:(a) the likelihood of confusion must be appreciated globally, taking account of all relevant factors;(b) the matter must be judged through the eyes of the average consumer of the goods or services in question, who is deemed to be reasonably well informed and reasonably circumspect and observant, but who rarely has the chance to make direct comparisons between marks and must instead rely upon the imperfect picture of them he has kept in his mind, and whose attention varies according to the category of goods or services in question;(c) the average consumer normally perceives a mark as a whole and does not proceed to analyse its various details;(d) the visual, aural and conceptual similarities of the marks must normally be assessed by reference to the overall impressions created by the marks bearing in mind their distinctive and dominant components, but it is only when all other components of a complex mark are negligible that it is permissible to make the comparison solely on the basis of the dominant elements; (e) nevertheless, the overall impression conveyed to the public by a composite trade mark may, in certain circumstances, be dominated by one or more of its components;(f) and beyond the usual case, where the overall impression created by a mark depends heavily on the dominant features of the mark, it is quite possible that in a particular case an element corresponding to an earlier trade mark may retain an independent distinctive role in a composite mark, without necessarily constituting a dominant element of that mark;(g) a lesser degree of similarity between the goods or services may be offset by a greater degree of similarity between the marks, and vice versa;(h) there is a greater likelihood of confusion where the earlier mark has a highly distinctive character, either per se or because of the use that has been made of it;(i) mere association, in the strict sense that the later mark brings the earlier mark to mind, is not sufficient;(j) the reputation of a mark does not give grounds for presuming a likelihood of confusion simply because of a likelihood of association in the strict sense;(k) if the association between the marks causes the public to wrongly believe that the respective goods [or services] come from the same or economically-linked undertakings, there is a likelihood of confusion.103.The most recent Court of Appeal authority on likelihood of confusion is Comic Enterprises Ltd v Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp [2016] EWCA Civ 41. At paragraph 30 the court stated: “[30] The similarity of the goods or services is central to the issue of infringement under art.5 (1)(b) and comes in at two points in the analysis. As this court explained in