[2025] EWHC 1722 (IPEC)

The parties’ positions on the similarity of the Signs to the Wise Logo Mark were poles apart. The Claimant submitted that the dominant element of the Mark is the word Wise, and that the Defendants’ Signs (which include the plain name Wise) are visually similar to the Mark to a high degree, as the most distinctive element of each is the word Wise, are identical aurally, as Wise is the only element that will be pronounced, and are conceptually identical in sharing the concept of wisdom, with the device adding no meaningful concept. The Defendants, on the contrary, said that the Mark was dominated by the large blue rectangle, and that the text and flag device are barely visible. The Mark’s visual elements are not found in their Signs. They suggested that the text of the Mark is so small that it would not be read out, so that there was no aural similarity, and that the Wise Logo Mark had no conceptual message other than the blue rectangle and the conceptual dissonance meant that the Signs are not similar to the Mark.

In my judgment, both parties’ positions go too far, and both invite the Court to ignore elements of the Mark rather than to assess the Mark as a whole, which it is well-established is the appropriate approach. From a visual point of view, I accept that the name Wise is the dominant feature of the Wise Logo Mark, especially as words generally speak louder than figurative elements. On the other hand, the purely visual elements of the Mark cannot be ignored, they are not negligible, and there is nothing in the Defendants’ Signs which resembles those elements. Moreover, two of the Defendants’ Signs are themselves stylised to a moderate degree, and that stylisation is not particularly similar to the Mark. I conclude that the Signs are all visually similar to the Wise Logo Mark; the simple word Wise is visually similar to it to a medium degree and the stylised Signs to a lesser degree. I accept that the Signs/Mark are aurally identical. Conceptually, both the Signs and the Mark carry the concept of wisdom, but the Defendants’ Signs lack the modest impact that the flag device might have upon a consumer, whether or not they recognise it as a flag. I find them conceptually similar to a medium-high degree. Overall, in my judgment, there is a medium-high degree of similarity between the Wise Logo Mark and the Defendants’ Signs.