Order — ECLI:EU:C:2026:323
Date: 2026-04-14
Language of the case: English

ORDER OF THE COURT (Chamber determining whether appeals may proceed) 14 April 2026 (*) ( Appeal – EU trade mark – Determination as to whether appeals should be allowed to proceed – Article 170b of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice – Request failing to demonstrate that an issue is significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law – Refusal to allow the appeal to proceed ) In Case C‑867/25 P, APPEAL under Article 56 of the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union, brought on 30 December 2025, Homestar sp. z o.o., established in Katowice (Poland), represented by P. Gwoździewicz-Matan, radca prawny, appellant, the other party to the proceedings being: European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), defendant at first instance, THE COURT (Chamber determining whether appeals may proceed), composed of T. von Danwitz, Vice-President of the Court, M. Condinanzi and A. Kornezov (Rapporteur), Judges, Registrar: A. Calot Escobar, having regard to the proposal from the Judge-Rapporteur and after hearing the Advocate General, N. Emiliou, makes the following Order 1 By its appeal, Homestar sp. z o.o. asks the Court of Justice to set aside the judgment of the General Court of the European Union of 29 October 2025, Homestar v EUIPO – General Sanitary (THERMATEC) (T‑611/24, ‘the contested judgment’, EU:T:2025:989), by which the General Court dismissed its action for annulment and alteration of the decision of the First Board of Appeal of the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) of 27 September 2024 (Case R 856/2024-1), concerning opposition proceedings between General Sanitary, SLU and Homestar. The request that the appeal be allowed to proceed 2 Under the first paragraph of Article 58a of the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union, an appeal brought against a decision of the General Court concerning a decision of an independent board of appeal of EUIPO is not to proceed unless the Court of Justice first decides that it should be allowed to do so. 3 In accordance with the third paragraph of Article 58a of that statute, an appeal is to be allowed to proceed, wholly or in part, in accordance with the detailed rules set out in the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice, where it raises an issue that is significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law. 4 Under Article 170a(1) of the Rules of Procedure, in the situations referred to in the first paragraph of Article 58a of that statute, the appellant is to annex to the appeal a request that the appeal be allowed to proceed, setting out the issue raised by the appeal that is significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law and containing all the information necessary to enable the Court of Justice to rule on that request. 5 In accordance with Article 170b(1) and (3) of the Rules of Procedure, the Court is to rule as soon as possible on the request that the appeal be allowed to proceed, in the form of a reasoned order. Arguments of the appellant 6 In support of its request that the appeal be allowed to proceed, the appellant submits that its appeal raises issues that are significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law. More specifically, it submits that the General Court misapplied the criteria for assessing the likelihood of confusion within the meaning of Article 8(1)(b) of Regulation (EU) 2017/1001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 June 2017 on the European Union trade mark (OJ 2017 L 154, p. 1). 7 In that regard, the appellant claims, in the first place, that the General Court disregarded the case-law of the Court of Justice relating to the concept of ‘complementarity of goods and services’, as set out in the judgment of 29 September 1998, Canon (C‑39/97, EU:C:1998:442), by finding that there was a similarity between the goods or services in question on the basis of a mere functional or technological link between them. Furthermore, it submits that the reasoning followed by the General Court in the assessment of the similarity of the signs at issue neutralises the legal consequences which settled case-law attaches to the low degree of distinctiveness of certain elements. In the appellant’s view, the errors thus relied on are liable to lead to divergent interpretations of Article 8(1)(b) of Regulation 2017/1001 by the General Court and the Court of Justice and, therefore, are liable to affect the unity of EU law. 8 In the second place, the appellant submits that those errors are such as to undermine the consistency of the assessment of the likelihood of confusion and to deprive certain criteria, such as the distinctiveness of the earlier mark or the level of attention of the relevant public, of their effectiveness. Consequently, it argues, the errors made by the General Court are liable to affect the consistency of EU law. 9 In the third and last place, the appellant submits that the case concerns technologically advanced products which involve significant financial investment, in particular from professional or specialist consumers. Therefore, the appellant considers that, in order for the criteria for assessing the likelihood of confusion to remain adapted to the current market conditions, the Court of Justice must clarify the scope of those criteria, first of all in the light of the impact of technological convergence on the similarity of the goods and services in question; next, in the light of the principle of interdependence where the common elements of the signs at issue have a low degree of distinctiveness; and, lastly, in the light of the impact of a high level of attention on the part of the relevant public. It follows, in the appellant’s submission, that the appeal also raises issues that are significant with respect to the development of EU law. Findings of the Court 10 As a preliminary point, it must be recalled that it is for the appellant to demonstrate that the issues raised by its appeal are significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law (orders of 10 December 2021, EUIPO v The KaiKai Company Jaeger Wichmann, C‑382/21 P, EU:C:2021:1050, paragraph 20, and of 18 November 2025, EUIPO v Versiontech, C‑411/25 P, EU:C:2025:943, paragraph 20). 11 Furthermore, as is apparent from the third paragraph of Article 58a of the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union, read together with Article 170a(1) and Article 170b(4) of the Rules of Procedure, the request that an appeal be allowed to proceed must contain all the information necessary to enable the Court to give a ruling on whether the appeal should be allowed to proceed and to specify, where the appeal is allowed to proceed in part, the pleas in law or parts of the appeal to which the response must relate. Given that the objective of the mechanism provided for in Article 58a of that statute whereby the Court determines whether an appeal should be allowed to proceed is to restrict review by the Court to issues that are significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law, only grounds of appeal that raise such issues and that are established by the appellant are to be examined by the Court in an appeal (orders of 10 December 2021, EUIPO v The KaiKai Company Jaeger Wichmann, C‑382/21 P, EU:C:2021:1050, paragraph 21, and of 18 November 2025, EUIPO v Versiontech, C‑411/25 P, EU:C:2025:943, paragraph 21). 12 Accordingly, a request that an appeal be allowed to proceed must, in any event, set out clearly and in detail the grounds on which the appeal is based, identify with equal clarity and detail the issue of law raised by each ground of appeal, specify whether that issue is significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law and set out the specific reasons why that issue is significant according to that criterion. As regards, in particular, the grounds of appeal, the request that an appeal be allowed to proceed must specify the provision of EU law or the case-law that has been infringed by the judgment or order under appeal, explain succinctly the nature of the error of law allegedly committed by the General Court, and indicate to what extent that error had an effect on the outcome of the judgment or order under appeal. Where the error of law relied on results from an infringement of the case-law, the request that the appeal be allowed to proceed must explain, in a succinct but clear and precise manner, first, where the alleged contradiction lies, by identifying the paragraphs of the judgment or order under appeal which the appellant is calling into question as well as those of the ruling of the Court of Justice or the General Court alleged to have been infringed, and, second, the concrete reasons why such a contradiction raises an issue that is significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law (orders of 10 December 2021, EUIPO v The KaiKai Company Jaeger Wichmann, C‑382/21 P, EU:C:2021:1050, paragraph 22, and of 18 November 2025, EUIPO v Versiontech, C‑411/25 P, EU:C:2025:943, paragraph 22). 13 A request that an appeal be allowed to proceed which does not contain the information mentioned in the preceding paragraph of the present order cannot be capable of demonstrating that the appeal raises an issue that is significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law that justifies the appeal being allowed to proceed (order of 24 October 2019, Porsche v EUIPO, C‑613/19 P, EU:C:2019:905, paragraph 16 and the case-law cited). 14 In the present case, by the line of argument set out in paragraphs 7 to 9 of the present order, it is true that the appellant identifies, in its request that the appeal be allowed to proceed, the issues which, in its view, the Court of Justice should address, and sets out the reasons why it considers that those issues are significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law. 15 However, by that line of argument, the appellant does not set out clearly and in detail the grounds on which the appeal is based; nor does it identify with equal clarity and detail the issue of law raised by each ground of appeal. It also does not identify the paragraphs of the contested judgment which it seeks to call into question; nor does it indicate to what extent the errors allegedly made by the General Court influenced the outcome of that judgment. 16 Furthermore, as regards the line of argument set out in paragraph 7 of the present order, it must be stated that such a line of argument is not, in itself, sufficient to establish, in accordance with the burden of proof which lies with the appellant requesting that an appeal be allowed to proceed, that that appeal raises an issue that is significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law. To that end, the appellant must comply with all the requirements set out in paragraph 12 of the present order. In the present case, the appellant, contrary to those requirements, does not specify the paragraphs of the contested judgment which are, in its view, contrary to the judgment of 29 September 1998, Canon (C‑39/97, EU:C:1998:442), or the settled case-law that was allegedly infringed by the contested judgment, or, lastly, what exactly is the alleged contradiction between the contested judgment and the decisions of the Court of Justice or of the General Court that were allegedly infringed (see order of 18 January 2024, Groupe Canal+ v EUIPO, C‑500/23 P, EU:C:2024:67, paragraph 16). 17 It follows from the foregoing considerations that the appellant has not complied with all of the requirements set out in paragraph 12 of the present order. 18 In those circumstances, the appellant’s request that the appeal be allowed to proceed does not establish that the appeal raises an issue that is significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law. 19 In the light of the foregoing considerations, the appeal should not be allowed to proceed. Costs 20 Under Article 137 of the Rules of Procedure, applicable to proceedings on appeal pursuant to Article 184(1) of those rules, a decision as to costs is to be given in the order which closes the proceedings. 21 Since the present order was adopted before the appeal was served on the other party to the proceedings and, therefore, before that party could have incurred costs, it is appropriate to decide that the appellant is to bear its own costs. On those grounds, the Court (Chamber determining whether appeals may proceed) hereby orders: 1. The appeal is not allowed to proceed. 2. Homestar sp. z o.o. shall bear its own costs. Luxembourg, 14 April 2026. A. Calot Escobar T. von Danwitz Registrar President of the Chamber determining whether appeals may proceed * Language of the case: English.