The Court dismisses Green Asset’s challenge as manifestly unfounded, confirming that broad service category designations can establish identity between competing marks
Case Law Brief: Order of the General Court (Eighth Chamber) – Case T-683/24 Green Asset, SL v EUIPO, intervener: Domitys SAS. Published on April 8th, 2026. Ruling: Inadmissibility.
The Dispute
Green Asset SL, a Spanish company, applied in September 2021 to register the figurative EU trade mark “hômity” for services in Classes 36 (real estate rental, acquisition management) and 37 (building repair, renovation, maintenance, laundry). Domity SAS, a French company operating in the senior living sector, opposed the application on the basis of its earlier EU figurative mark “DOMITYS”, registered for the “real estate affairs” in Class 36 and “building construction and maintenance, laundry” in Class 37. The Opposition Division upheld the opposition, finding a likelihood of confusion. Green Asset appealed to EUIPO’s Board of Appeal, which dismissed the appeal. Green Asset then brought the matter before the General Court.
The Ruling
The General Court dismissed the action as manifestly lacking any foundation in law under Article 126 of its Rules of Procedure, without convening an oral hearing despite Green Asset’s request.
On the relevant public, Green Asset argued that because Domitys commercially targets elderly residents, its services reach a different public from Green Asset’s. The Court rejected this firmly, reaffirming that the relevant public for likelihood of confusion purposes is defined by the registered scope of the marks, not by the commercial choices or marketing strategy of either party. Since both marks covered identical service categories on paper, the public overlap was established regardless of how either company actually positioned itself in the market.
On service identity, Green Asset contended that “real estate affairs” in Class 36 was too generic as a designation to encompass its more specific services, and similarly that “building construction and maintenance” in Class 37 was too broad. The Court rejected both arguments, confirming settled case law that services covered by a trade mark application are considered identical to those of the earlier mark when they fall within a broader general category covered by that mark. Green Asset offered no specific argument distinguishing its services from those broad categories, which proved fatal to this line of attack.
On sign similarity, the Board of Appeal had found at least below-average visual similarity and above-average phonetic similarity between “hômity” and “DOMITYS”, noting that both marks share a sequence of five letters (“omity”) out of six and seven total, differ only in their initial consonants, and that figurative and stylistic differences were insufficient to offset the phonetic proximity. Green Asset’s sole argument on visual similarity was that counting letters is an irrelevant methodology. The Court dismissed this as manifestly inadmissible for failing to explain why the letter count was specifically irrelevant in this case, without providing substantive legal argument.
The Court also rejected as inadmissible Green Asset’s general reference to submissions made before EUIPO, reiterating that an application before the General Court must contain the essential elements of the legal argument within the application itself, and that referencing the administrative file wholesale does not satisfy pleading requirements.
Taking all factors together (identical services, at least below-average visual similarity, above-average phonetic similarity, and the interdependence principle) the Court upheld the Board of Appeal’s global likelihood of confusion assessment.
Green Asset was ordered to pay Domitys’s costs. EUIPO, having only requested costs in the event of an oral hearing, bears its own costs.
