Quoting percentages for chances of success
I have here a client who wants me to give him an idea about the chances of success in trademark registration proceedings (the Subject Mark).
It is about overcoming a citation objection of two earlier trademarks (Cited Marks) in Singapore. One option is to file written arguments to contest the Examiner’s findings. We may attempt to do so by:
(a) Distinguishing the Subject Mark from the Cited Marks based on visual differences, i.e. Subject Mark contains word stylization differences and presence of different devices which makes it distinguishable from the Cited Marks, AND/OR
(b) distinguishing the Subject Mark from the Cited Marks based on conceptual differences, i.e. Subject Mark’s emphasis appears to be on the last 2 letters, and the same emphasis is not found in the Cited Marks, AND/OR
(c) Distinguishing the Subject Mark from the Cited Marks based on the differences in the nature of the Applicant’s business and the Cited Marks proprietor’s business. We can explain that the Applicant’s scope of business is an entirely different field from the Cited Marks proprietors. The first cited mark appears to pertain to the education field, and second cited mark appears to pertain to the organization of trade fairs. There however appears to be a greater overlap in one class of services for the second cited mark, hence this argument may not be as convincing.
The chances of successfully overcoming the Examiner’s objection based on this are not optimistic.
I would like to say that the chances to be successful are estimated to be at about 20%.
Any comments?