Intercontinental Exchange loses trademark case from ICECAT in Europe

AMSTERDAM - June 19, 2014 - PRLog -- Amsterdam, 19 juni 2014: Icecat has successfully opposed against the brand ICE CHAT which was registered by Intercontinental Exchange  as a European Trademark. The European Office for Harmonization of the Internal Market (OHIM) ruled that the brands were too similar and that the registrations were in overlapping categories: software and information services which would lead to brand confusion in the market. Not unimportant details are that the French word for CAT is CHAT, and that in some European countries both trademarks are pronounced identically.

Martijn Hoogeveen, CEO of Icecat: “the ruling is as expected, and it strenghtens the brand Icecat. We believe ICE has to drop the use of the trademark ICE CHAT.”

About Icecat
Icecat NV is an independent worldwide syndicator of product content and publisher of ecommerce statistics.

Icecat standardized millions of product data-sheets in 35 world languages and analyzes the performance of 8000+ brands. Its statistics are based on 2 billion annual product data-sheets downloads by tens of thousands connected ecommerce websites: online shops, ERP systems, comparison sites, purchase systems, rating portals, and other applications. Open Icecat is an open catalog, part of Icecat's full catalog, via which the product content for 300+ technology brands is distributed for free (see: http://www.icecat.biz/menu/partners/index.htm ).

More info:
https://oami.europa.eu/eSearch/#details/trademarks/010715662
http://www.icecat.biz/
Attached Ruling of OHIM