Ready for a festival or a career coach?

In recent years organizing festivals has become big business. And soon, when everyone wants to dance without Corona limitations, this will only become more.

Each festival has its own identity, in terms of music, design, format and other distinctive elements. The choice of name is very important in this respect. This name (and logo and possibly other design features) must be well protected.

The famous American festival Coachella knows this and has registered its name as a trademark, even in the EU. Luckily, because this festival was confronted with a European application from Coachilla, a platform where you can be coached online in your career. Not quite what the average festival visitor had in mind.

Is this visitor mixing up these brands?

According to the EUIPO, yes. At least there is a risk. The difference between the trademarks Coachella and Coachilla is of course small. On the other hand, one can say that there is a difference between the services that both trademarks offer, but the EUIPO mainly looks at how the trademarks are registered and filed. And this assessment results in a similarity between the services of both trademarks.

Coachella was therefore successful in defending its trademark. Good news for the visitor of the festival.