ETIRA vs ETRIA: 1-0

June 30, 2025

In 2023, Ricoh asked the EU’s brand registration authority, EUIPO, to register the brand “ETRIA” for its printer manufacturing joint venture with other OEMs. ETIRA opposed this registration, as did EDRIA GmbH, a company based in Bamberg, Germany. Like ETIRA, EDRIA argued that registering “ETRIA” would create confusion among customers.

ETIRA entered a period of negotiations with Ricoh, temporarily suspending our opposition. EDRIA, however, continued its challenge — and with success. On 13 June 2025, the EUIPO ruled in favour of EDRIA, finding a likelihood of confusion for the public. The EUIPO concluded that the opposition was well founded, and that the brand “ETRIA” must be rejected for all the contested services.

In line with this ruling, the EUIPO also suspended Ricoh’s opposition to ETIRA’s separate application to extend our existing ETIRA brand registration to cover printers as well.

Ricoh now has until 13 August 2025 to appeal. If no appeal is filed, the brand “ETRIA” will never come into use, and their opposition to our application to extend the ETIRA brand will also lapse.

ETIRA is baffled as to how this situation ever arose. Ricoh could have chosen from millions of other names for this joint venture. Surely, their trademark consultant must have noticed the obvious resemblance to existing brands.