ORDER OF THE COURT (Chamber determining whether appeals may proceed)
28 October 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 is significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law – Refusal to allow the appeal to proceed )
In Case C‑305/25 P,
APPEAL under Article 56 of the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union, brought on 28 April 2025,
eBilet Polska sp. z o.o., established in Warsaw (Poland), represented by P. Kurcman, 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, 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, L. Medina,
makes the following
Order
1        By its appeal, eBilet Polska sp. z o.o asks the Court of Justice to set aside the judgment of the General Court of the European Union of 26 February 2025, eBilet Polska v EUIPO (eBilet)
(T‑197/24, ‘the judgment under appeal’, EU:T:2025:184), by which the General Court dismissed the action for annulment and alteration of the decision of the Second Board of Appeal of the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) of 14 February 2024 (Case R 695/2023-2) concerning an application for registration of the figurative sign eBilet as an EU trade mark.
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        The third paragraph of Article 58a of that statute provides that 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        Article 170a(1) of those rules provides that, 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’s decision on the request that the appeal be allowed to proceed is to be taken as soon as possible 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 sets out the three grounds of its appeal and submits, in particular, that the present case raises an important legal issue.
7        By its first ground of appeal, the appellant submits that the General Court infringed Article 7(1)(b) and (c) 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) in finding that the letter ‘e’ forming part of the mark in respect of which registration was refused refers to goods or services of an electronic nature. However, marks containing that letter are fanciful names – neologisms which, as such, do not refer to a type of good or service. That is the case with the mark in respect of which registration was refused, in which the combination of the letter ‘e’ and the word ‘Bilet’, meaning ‘ticket’ in Polish, does not trigger an automatic association of that mark with the goods or services concerned. Such an association is, at most, indirect, which is not sufficient to consider that that mark is deprived a priori of distinctiveness.
8        By its second ground of appeal, also alleging infringement of Article 7(1)(b) and (c) of Regulation 2017/1001, the appellant complains that the General Court erred in its assessment of three essential characteristics of the mark eBilet, namely, first, its combined spelling, second, the difference in size between the lower-case letter ‘e’, the capital letter ‘B’ and the letters ‘ilet’ in lower case, and, third, the colour scheme and the nature of the typeface, which, taken together, affect the minimum distinctive character of that mark. The General Court did not therefore address the question whether that mark, taken as a whole, has sufficient distinctive character to indicate the particular origin of the goods and services concerned.
9        By its third ground of appeal, the appellant complains that the General Court failed to have regard to the principles of legal certainty, sound administration, equal treatment and uniformity of decisions concerning the same or a similar factual and legal situation, set out in Article 6 of the Treaty on European Union and Articles 41, 20 and 21 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. In the same way as EUIPO, the General Court did not specify, in breach of those principles, the ‘specific errors’ which vitiate EUIPO’s decisions granting the earlier applications for registration of identical or similar marks submitted by the appellant and which prevent it from relying on those decisions in support of its application for registration of a new EU trade mark. The absence of such details vitiates both the decision of the Second Board of Appeal of EUIPO, referred to in paragraph 1 of the present order, and the judgment under appeal. The important legal issue thus raised by the appeal is how to deal with a new application for registration of an EU trade mark which is the same as or similar to applications for registration of earlier marks filed by the same appellant and upheld by EUIPO.
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 29 April 2025, SC v Eulex Kosovo, C‑881/24 P, EU:C:2025:313, paragraph 14).
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 the 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 29 April 2025, SC v Eulex Kosovo, C‑881/24 P, EU:C:2025:313, paragraph 15).
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 disregard 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 29 April 2025, SC v Eulex Kosovo, C‑881/24 P, EU:C:2025:313, paragraph 16).
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, 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 17 June 2025, Butzkies-Schiemann v EUIPO, C‑46/25 P, EU:C:2025:453, paragraph 17 and the case-law cited).
14      In the present case, in the first place, with regard to the arguments summarised in paragraphs 7 and 8 of the present order, although the appellant identifies errors of law allegedly made by the General Court, it does not explain or, in any event, demonstrate how such errors of law, even if established, raise issues that are significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law that would justify the appeal being allowed to proceed. Accordingly, that line of argument does not meet the requirements set out in paragraph 12 of the present order (see, to that effect, order of 12 June 2025, Puma v EUIPO, C‑21/25 P, EU:C:2025:445, paragraph 17 and the case-law cited).
15      In addition, by such a line of argument, the appellant also seeks to call into question the factual assessment made by the General Court of the distinctive character of the mark in respect of which registration was refused, which cannot demonstrate 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 (see, to that effect, order of 12 June 2025, Puma v EUIPO, C‑21/25 P, EU:C:2025:445, paragraph 18 and the case-law cited).
16      In the second place, as regards the line of argument summarised in paragraph 9 of the present order, it is true that the appellant identifies an ‘important legal issue’, allegedly raised by the present case, namely how to deal with a new application for registration of an EU trade mark, which is the same as or similar to applications for registration of earlier marks, submitted by the same appellant and upheld by EUIPO. However, the appellant does not in any way set out the specific reasons why that issue is significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law, within the meaning of the case-law referred to in paragraph 12 of the present order.
17      In those circumstances, it must be held that the request that the appeal be allowed to proceed submitted by the appellant is not such as to establish that the appeal raises an issue that is significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law.
18      In the light of all the foregoing considerations, the appeal should not be allowed to proceed.
Costs
19      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.
20      Since the present order was adopted before the appeal was served on the other party to the proceedings and, therefore, before it 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.      eBilet Polska sp. z o.o. shall bear its own costs.
Luxembourg, 28 October 2025.
A. Calot Escobar
T. von Danwitz
Registrar
President of the Chamber determining whether appeals may proceed
*      Language of the case: English.