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Absolute grounds for refusal of a trademark are many, most common are descriptiveness, lack of distinctive character, being generic. Also exclusion due to shape or other characteristic. Bad faith is also grounds for refusal and is where an application is judged to have been made to impede another firm, rather than for legitimate use.
Similarity and relative grounds for refusal of a trademark applications are when the trademark is already in use, or too similar to one in use, for the same Goods and Services. The test of similarity is whether there there is a likelihood of confusion or association between the two trademarks. This does not rely on a careful study of the two, but rather he risk of confusion to ‘a moron in a hurry’. This test was famously devised by Justice Foster in the English case Morning Star Cooperative Society v Express Newspapers Limited and has since been used in trademark hearings in many countries.
Trademark similarity for word marks and figurative marks are 1) aural,: how it sounds, 2) visual; how it looks, and b) conceptual.; the concept it conveys. So Mycrowsoft who be considered too aurally similar to Microsoft. Visual similarity would prevent the registration of airdmd as too visually similar to airbnb (as well probably as aurally). Two trademarks are conceptually similar if they convey the same are conceptually similar if they convey the same concept or idea. So Lemon luggage and Lime baggage are concepually similar.
Visual similarity in trademarks is acording to how they look. It can apply o the arranagements of the letters in word marks as well as the look of figurative marks, also known as logo marks. Examples would be DogTired and DogTried or AadVark And ArtVaak