RSP SA: Decision of the Federal Supreme Court (Bundesgericht) 3 January 2022 – Case No. 4A_375/2021

• Published in: IIC - International Review of Intellectual Property and Competition Law 2022-11, Vol.53 (10), p.1579-1587
• Main Author: RSP Rail Service Partner SA v. A. SA, formerly B. AG Civil Code, Art. 29 – Act against Unfair Competition, Art. 3(d)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Decision • Trade Mark Law; Intellectual Property; IT Law; Law; Law and Criminolgy; Media Law
• ISSN: 0018-9855; 2195-0237
• DOI: 10.1007/s40319-022-01258-8

A mere string of three letters as a component of the name of a legal person (here: RSP) has low suitability for individualisation, at least insofar as the sequence of letters does not have a distinctive character for other reasons. Even relatively weak distinctive differences of abbreviations and letter combinations are enough to create a sufficient distance in the overall impression (here: the addition of the letters “s” and “a” to the domain name on the one hand, and the additions of “Rail”, “Service” and “Partner” to the opposing name on the other). The fact that the parties may be active in factual and geographical proximity does not reverse this result, especially considering that users generally pay particular attention to domain names, as they know that even a slight difference in the sign can lead to a different website.