Picasso ≠ Picaro

After a number of years, numerous court cases, and denied appeals, Europe has determined that "Picasso" is not similar to "Picaro." According to the People's Daily Online, the Picasso family has been vigorously defending their rights to the Picasso name. They had even licensed the name to Citroën to be used with cars. DaimlerChrysler came along and decided to use the name "Picaro." While I certainly understand the desire to protect brand names, I do not think that "Picaro" and "Picasso" are similar to the point of confusion. It appears that European courts agree with me. According to the article:

The judges conceded that both words contained three syllables and that both words did, indeed, have the same vowels, in the same order.

They also accepted that the consonants were pretty similar too, and they acknowledged that the first two syllables and the final letters of both words were identical. But the pronunciation of the two words was markedly different, they said there was a double "s" sounding utterly dissimilar to an "r" sound.

And the two words, the court heard, conjured up different images. "Picasso" brought to mind the beret-wearing painter, the lover of minotaurs, nude women and the colour blue, whereas "Picaro" was understood by native Spanish speakers to refer to a character from Spanish literature.

The two words "are not thus similar from the conceptual point of view" the judgement read. "Such conceptual differences can in certain circumstances counteract the visual and phonetic similarities between the signs (words) concerned."

I couldn't have said it better myself. This is the type of analysis that is used to determine trademark infringement. Much of the determination of trademark infringement hinges upon showing different meanings. This can be quite exciting, as there is a lot of research into origins of words, opinions of people on the street, foreign language equivalents, etc. Then again, I'm a trademark attorney so I do find this quite exciting.