Refusal of application for a European Union trade mark

(Article 7 and Article 42(2) EUTMR)

Alicante, 19/12/2018

SIPARA LIMITED

Unit 1 Rochester House Eynsham Road

Farmoor Oxfordshire OX2 9NH

REINO UNIDO

Application No:	017954207
Your reference:	TM10163EU00.NB.JM
Trade mark:	WER.AI
Mark type:	Word mark
Applicant:	WeR.AI, Inc. 23781 Via Roble Coto de Caza California 92679 ESTADOS UNIDOS (DE AMÉRICA)

The Office raised an objection on 10/10/2018 pursuant to Article 7(1)(b) EUTMR and Article 7(2) EUTMR because it found that the trade mark applied for is not eligible for registration, for the reasons set out in the attached letter, which forms an integral part of this decision.

The Office maintains that, the sign would be understood by relevant consumers as meaning: Word error rate. Artificial intelligence.

WER is an acronym for “Word error rate” which is a common metric of the performance of a speech recognition or machine translation system (source: http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Word+Error+Rate ).

AI is an acronym for “Artificial Intelligence”, which is the ability of a computer or other machine to perform those activities that are normally thought to require intelligence (source: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Artificial+Intelligence ).

Applied to the goods and services in question, it is believed that the mark WER.AI merely would be perceived as providing information about those goods and services.

The software in class 9, and the software services in class 42, relate to data analytics and machine learning models. Automated speech recognition is based on the use of Artificial Intelligence. AI software analyses Word error rate with the aim of improving a speech recognition system.

As a whole, there is no element in the mark that can be considered as distinctive.

The applicant failed to submit observations within the time limit. For the reasons set out in the letter of objection, and pursuant to Article 7(1)(b) EUTMR and Article 7(2) EUTMR, the application for European Union trade mark No 017954207 is hereby rejected for all the goods and services claimed.

According to Article 67 EUTMR, you have a right to appeal against this decision. According to Article 68 EUTMR, notice of appeal must be filed in writing at the Office within two months of the date of notification of this decision. It must be filed in the language of the proceedings in which the decision subject to appeal was taken. Furthermore, a written statement of the grounds of appeal must be filed within four months of the same date. The notice of appeal will be deemed to be filed only when the appeal fee of EUR 720 has been paid.

Cecilia ALIN