Oberster Gerichtshof, Beschluß vom 22/05/2007 4 Ob 43/07p
Decision by national courts in the field of European Union law — ECLI:AT:OGH0002:2007:RS0122072
Date: 2007-05-22
Subject matter: Judicial cooperation in civil matters
Origin: Austria

82007AT0522(02)_ENG_SUMJURE
JURE SUMMARY
JURE SUMMARY
The plaintiff company as well as the defendant company sell household products and are competitors on the Austrian market. The plaintiff is the owner of a registered Community design. Upon an application by the plaintiff, the Handelsgericht of Vienna (AT) ordered a preliminary injunction against the defendant due to the infringement of a Community design. The appellate court dismissed the application, however allowed an appeal on a point of law. In the appellate proceedings, the plaintiff invoked, inter alia, the principle of uniformity of Community design according to Article 1(3) of the Community Design Regulation. It asserted that the Austrian court was bound by the judgments of other courts regarding the same Community design, even though the parties in these proceedings were not the same as in the parallel proceedings.
The OGH (AT) holds that the appeal is unfounded. It states that according to Article 79(1) of the Community Design Regulation, Article 27(1) Brussels I Regulation shall be applied to disputes in matters relating to Community designs. Article 27(1) requires party identity in order to establish lis pendens, respectively consequences of a stay. Against this background the national implementation of Community provisions entails a different determination of parallel subject matters in different Member States. Thus, due to the lack of party identity, the Handelsgericht of Vienna (AT) is not bound by the judgments of other courts for Community designs regarding the same Community design.