ORDER OF THE COURT (Chamber determining whether appeals may proceed)
25 June 2025 (*)
( 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 raised by the appeal is significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law – Refusal to allow the appeal to proceed )
In Case C‑6/25 P,
APPEAL under Article 56 of the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union, brought on 7 January 2025,
Vintae Luxury Wine Specialists SLU, established in Logroño (Spain), represented by L. Broschat García and L. Polo Flores, abogados,
appellant,
the other parties to the proceedings being:
European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO),
defendant at first instance,
Grande Vitae GmbH, established in Delmenhorst (Germany),
intervener at first instance,
THE COURT (Chamber determining whether appeals may proceed),
composed of T. von Danwitz, Vice-President of the Court, S. Rodin and N. Piçarra (Rapporteur), Judges,
Registrar: A. Calot Escobar,
having regard to the proposal from the Judge-Rapporteur and after hearing the Advocate General, M. Campos Sánchez-Bordona,
makes the following
Order
1        By its appeal, Vintae Luxury Wine Specialists SLU asks the Court of Justice to set aside the judgment of the General Court of the European Union of 6 November 2024, Vintae Luxury Wine Specialists v EUIPO – Grande Vitae (vintae) (T‑136/23, ‘the judgment under appeal’, EU:T:2024:779), by which the General Court dismissed its action for annulment of the decision of the First Board of Appeal of the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) of 16 January 2023 (Case R 2238/2021-1), relating to invalidity proceedings between Grande Vitae GmbH and Vintae Luxury Wine Specialists.
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 the 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 those rules, 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 those rules, 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 the appeal raises issues that are significant with respect to the unity, consistency and development of EU law, within the meaning of the third paragraph of Article 58a of the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union, in particular as regards the evidential criteria which must be met in order to demonstrate ‘actual awareness’, on the part of the proprietor of an earlier national trade mark, of the use of a later EU trade mark in the Member State in which that earlier national trade mark is protected, within the meaning of Article 53(2), entitled ‘Limitation in consequence of acquiescence’, of Council Regulation (EC) No 40/94 of 20 December 1993 on the Community trade mark (OJ 1994 L 11, p. 1), replaced by Council Regulation (EC) No 207/2009 of 26 February 2009 on the European Union trade mark (OJ 2009 L 78, p. 1), itself replaced by 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        As regards the criteria of unity and consistency of EU law, the appellant submits, first of all, that its appeal provides the Court of Justice with an opportunity to clarify the standard of proof required. According to the appellant, the General Court’s interpretation of the concept of ‘actual awareness’ of the use of a later EU trade mark, which the proprietor of an earlier mark must have, as a condition for preventing it from bringing invalidity and opposition actions against that later mark, within the meaning of Article 53(2), imposes ‘a probatio diabolica by requiring direct, subjective proof’ of that ‘actual awareness’ on the part of the proprietor of the earlier mark. According to the appellant, the General Court did not sufficiently take into account ‘circumstantial evidence’ showing the intensive use and visibility of the later EU trade mark VINTAE, such as the presence of the appellant, the proprietor of that mark, at events in the wine sector, its branding efforts and its significant role in that sector. In that regard, the registration of the appellant’s trade mark in Class 35 of the Nice Agreement Concerning the International Classification of Goods and Services for the Purposes of the Registration of Marks of 15 June 1957, as revised and amended, emphasises the importance of its public visibility in trade fairs and in the media. According to the appellant, when the General Court refers to direct and subjective evidence, it disregards the realities of the wine sector, where visibility and branding efforts in essence encourage mutual awareness. By failing to take account of such circumstantial evidence, the General Court imposes an unrealistic burden of proof on trade mark proprietors.
8        Such an interpretation led the General Court to retroactively invalidate a long-standing later EU trade mark, in breach, in particular, of the principle of legal certainty. The consequences of the judgment under appeal extend ‘beyond the parties involved’, thus threatening the stability of the EU trade mark system and creating uncertainty for undertakings using long-standing trade marks, deterring investment and innovation in the internal market.
9        Next, the appellant submits that the judgment under appeal departed from the settled case-law of the Court of Justice, such as the judgment of 11 June 2009, Chocoladefabriken Lindt & Sprüngli (C‑529/07, EU:C:2009:361), which makes it possible to infer subjective knowledge from objective circumstances, and the judgment of 22 September 2011, Budějovický Budvar (C‑482/09, EU:C:2011:605), in which the Court accepted that circumstantial evidence could be produced to demonstrate such knowledge. The appellant’s appeal thus seeks to remedy that inconsistency and to reaffirm the principles established by the Court.
10      Lastly, as regards the criterion relating to the development of EU law, the appellant submits that the present case provides the Court of Justice with a ‘unique opportunity’ to examine the systemic implications of the General Court’s approach, in particular its impact on legal certainty and on the balance between earlier and later trade mark rights, and, therefore, to deliver a judgment providing undertakings and legal practitioners with essential guidance on the EU trade mark system.
Findings of the Court
11      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 14 March 2025, Eurosemillas v CPVO, C‑774/24 P, EU:C:2025:190, paragraph 12).
12      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 and 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 14 March 2025, Eurosemillas v CPVO, C‑774/24 P, EU:C:2025:190, paragraph 13).
13      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 14 March 2025, Eurosemillas v CPVO, C‑774/24 P, EU:C:2025:190, paragraph 14).
14      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, from the outset, 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 (orders of 24 October 2019, Porsche v EUIPO, C‑613/19 P, EU:C:2019:905, paragraph 16, and of 14 March 2025, Eurosemillas v CPVO, C‑774/24 P, EU:C:2025:190, paragraph 15).
15      In the present case, it is apparent from the arguments set out in paragraphs 7 and 8 of the present order that, although, in its request that the appeal be allowed to proceed, the appellant identifies the issues which, in its view, the Court of Justice is called upon to clarify concerning the means of proving awareness, by the proprietor of an earlier national mark, of the use of a later EU trade mark, within the meaning of Article 53(2) of Regulation No 40/94, it does not, however, set out clearly and precisely the grounds on which the appeal is based. By those arguments, the appellant merely claims that the interpretation, adopted in the judgment under appeal, of the concept of ‘actual awareness’ – which amounts to imposing a ‘probatio diabolica’ – undermines, inter alia, the principle of legal certainty, while threatening, ‘beyond the parties involved’, the stability of the EU trade mark system. Nor does the appellant specify the reasons why those circumstances, even if established, raise an issue that is significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law, merely stating that the judgment under appeal creates uncertainty for undertakings using long-standing trade marks, which deters investment and innovation in the internal market.
16      Moreover, by its line of argument set out in paragraph 7 of the present order, the appellant seeks, in reality, to call into question the General Court’s assessment of the facts and evidence, such as the appellant’s presence at key events in the wine sector, its branding efforts or its significant role in that sector. In that regard, it must be borne in mind that an argument seeking to call into question such assessments made by the General Court is not capable, in principle, even if well founded, of raising an issue that is significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law (see, to that effect, orders of 31 March 2022, St. Hippolyt v EUIPO, C‑762/21 P, EU:C:2022:255, paragraph 18, and of 14 March 2025, Eurosemillas v CPVO, C‑774/24 P, EU:C:2025:190, paragraph 16).
17      As regards the line of argument referred to in paragraph 9 of the present order, alleging that the General Court erred in law by departing from the applicable case-law of the Court of Justice, the appellant has failed to identify either the paragraphs of the judgment under appeal which it seeks to call into question or those of the judgments of the Court of Justice cited in paragraph 9 which have allegedly been infringed. Nor does it identify, in a sufficiently clear and precise manner, where the alleged contradiction lies, and does not set out the specific reasons why such a contradiction, even if it were established, raises an issue that is significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law (see, to that effect, order of 19 November 2024, Penguin Random House v EUIPO, C‑538/24 P, EU:C:2024:969, paragraphs 15, 18 and 19).
18      In those circumstances, it must be held that the request submitted by the appellant is not capable of establishing that the appeal raises an issue that is significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law, within the meaning of the third paragraph of Article 58a of the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union and Article 170a(1) of the Rules of Procedure.
19      In the light of all of the foregoing, 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 parties to the proceedings and, therefore, before they 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.      Vintae Luxury Wine Specialists SLU shall bear its own costs.
Luxembourg, 25 June 2025.
A. Calot Escobar
T. von Danwitz
Registrar
President of the Chamber determining whether appeals may proceed
*      Language of the case: English.