New South Wales Lotteries Corporation Pty Limited, Golden Casket Lottery Corporation Limited,=?ISO-8859-1?Q?_Tattersall=92s_Swee?=ps Pty Ltd, Tatts Lotteries SA Pty Ltd and Tatts NT Lotteries Pty Ltd

The applicants, New South Wales Lotteries Corporation Pty Limited, Golden Casket Lottery Corporation Limited, Tattersall's Sweeps Pty Ltd, Tatts Lotteries SA Pty Ltd, and Tatts NT Lotteries Pty Ltd, sought to appeal a decision of the Registrar of Trade Marks. The dispute concerned the Registrar's proposed revocation of the acceptance of a trade mark application. The matter was heard by Nicole Worth.

The central legal issue before the court was whether the Registrar's decision to propose revoking the acceptance of the trade mark application was justified. This involved determining whether the trade mark, if registered, would be deceptively similar to an earlier trade mark, thereby constituting a ground for rejection under section 44 of the *Trade Marks Act 1995* (Cth). The court also considered whether the goods and services for which the trade mark was sought were similar or closely related to those covered by the earlier mark, and whether the exception in section 44(3)(b) of the Act applied.

The court reasoned that the Registrar had correctly identified a substantial degree of similarity between the applied-for trade mark and the earlier mark, and that the goods and services were also closely related. Consequently, the court found that the application should not have been accepted in the first place and that it was reasonable for the Registrar to propose revoking that acceptance. The court concluded that the application was not entitled to registration on the grounds of deceptive similarity.

The court ordered that the application be returned to the examination stage.