ddrg/super_eurlex huggingface dataset:
Keywords

Subject of the case

Operative part



Keywords

Community trade mark — Observations of third parties and opposition — Examination of the opposition — Proof of use of the earlier mark — Genuine use — Application of the criteria to the case in question (Council Regulation No 207/2009, Arts 15(1) and 42(2) and (3)) (see paras 27-29)

2. Community trade mark — Observations of third parties and opposition — Examination of the opposition — Proof of use of the earlier mark — Genuine use — Concept — Criteria for assessment (Council Regulation No 207/2009, Arts 15(1) and 42(2) and (3)) (see paras 30, 31)

3. Community trade mark — Definition and acquisition of the Community trade mark — Relative grounds for refusal — Opposition by the proprietor of an earlier identical or similar mark registered for identical or similar goods or services — Likelihood of confusion with the earlier mark — Criteria for assessment (Council Regulation No 207/2009, Art. 8(1)(b)) (see paras 64-66)

4. Community trade mark — Definition and acquisition of the Community trade mark — Relative grounds for refusal — Opposition by the proprietor of an earlier identical or similar mark registered for identical or similar goods or services — Likelihood of confusion with the earlier mark — Figurative mark LIDL express and figurative mark LÍDL MUSIC (Council Regulation No 207/2009, Art. 8(1)(b)) (see paras 67, 72-82, 84)

5. Community trade mark — Definition and acquisition of the Community trade mark — Relative grounds for refusal — Opposition by the proprietor of an earlier identical or similar mark registered for identical or similar goods or services — Similarity of the marks concerned — Criteria for assessment — Complex mark (Council Regulation No 207/2009, Art. 8(1)(b)) (see paras 70, 71)

Subject of the case

Re:

ACTION for annulment of the decision of the First Board of Appeal of OHIM of 21 March 2012 (Case R 2380/2010‑1) relating to opposition proceedings between Lídl Music spol. s r.o. and Lidl Stiftung & Co. KG.

Operative part

Operative part

The Court:

1. Dismisses the action;

2. Orders Lidl Stiftung & Co. KG to pay the costs.
Judgment of the General Court (Eighth Chamber) of 16 January 2014 — Ferienhäuser zum See v OHIM — Sunparks Groep (Sun Park Holidays)

(Case T‑383/12)

‛Community trade mark — Opposition proceedings — Application for the Community figurative mark Sun Park Holidays — Earlier Community figurative mark Sunparks Holiday Parks — Relative ground for refusal — Likelihood of confusion — Similarity of the signs — Article 8(1)(b) of Regulation (EC) No 207/2009’

1. Community trade mark — Definition and acquisition of the Community trade mark — Relative grounds for refusal — Opposition by the proprietor of an earlier identical or similar mark registered for identical or similar goods or services — Likelihood of confusion with the earlier mark — Criteria for assessment (Council Regulation No 207/2009, Art. 8(1)(b)) (see paras 23-25, 72)

2. Community trade mark — Definition and acquisition of the Community trade mark — Relative grounds for refusal — Opposition by the proprietor of an earlier identical or similar mark registered for identical or similar goods or services — Likelihood of confusion with the earlier mark — Figurative marks Sun Park Holidays and Sunparks Holiday Parks (Council Regulation No 207/2009, Art. 8(1)(b)) (see paras 34, 40, 77, 78)

Re:

ACTION brought against the decision of the Fourth Board of Appeal of OHIM of 25 June 2012 (Case R 1928/2011-4), relating to opposition proceedings between Sunparks Groep NV and Ferienhäuser zum See GmbH.

Operative part

The Court:

1. Dismisses the action;

2. Orders the applicant to pay the costs.

Judgment of the General Court (Eighth Chamber) of 16 January 2014 — Ferienhäuser zum See v OHIM — Sunparks Groep (Sun Park Holidays)

(Case T‑383/12)

‛Community trade mark — Opposition proceedings — Application for the Community figurative mark Sun Park Holidays — Earlier Community figurative mark Sunparks Holiday Parks — Relative ground for refusal — Likelihood of confusion — Similarity of the signs — Article 8(1)(b) of Regulation (EC) No 207/2009’

1. Community trade mark — Definition and acquisition of the Community trade mark — Relative grounds for refusal — Opposition by the proprietor of an earlier identical or similar mark registered for identical or similar goods or services — Likelihood of confusion with the earlier mark — Criteria for assessment (Council Regulation No 207/2009, Art. 8(1)(b)) (see paras 23-25, 72)

2. Community trade mark — Definition and acquisition of the Community trade mark — Relative grounds for refusal — Opposition by the proprietor of an earlier identical or similar mark registered for identical or similar goods or services — Likelihood of confusion with the earlier mark — Figurative marks Sun Park Holidays and Sunparks Holiday Parks (Council Regulation No 207/2009, Art. 8(1)(b)) (see paras 34, 40, 77, 78)

Re:

ACTION brought against the decision of the Fourth Board of Appeal of OHIM of 25 June 2012 (Case R 1928/2011-4), relating to opposition proceedings between Sunparks Groep NV and Ferienhäuser zum See GmbH.

Operative part

The Court:

1. Dismisses the action;
The applicant’s bad faith within the meaning of Article 52(1)(b) of Regulation No 207/09 on the Community trade mark should must be assessed as a whole, taking account of all the factors in the particular case, and, in particular:

— the fact that the applicant knows or should know that a third party is using, in at least one Member State, an identical or similar sign for an identical or similar product liable to be confused with the sign for which registration is sought;

— the applicant’s intention of preventing that third party from continuing to use such a sign;

— the degree of legal protection enjoyed by the third party’s sign and by the sign for which registration is sought.

In addition, the intention of preventing certain goods from being marketed may, in certain circumstances, be indicative of bad faith on the part of the applicant. That is the case, in particular, where it subsequently becomes apparent that the applicant had the sign registered as a Community trade mark with no intention of using it, his sole objective being to prevent a third party from entering the market.

That being so, the three factors set out above are only examples drawn from a number of factors which can be taken into account in order to decide whether the applicant was acting in bad faith at the time of filing the application. In the context of the overall analysis undertaken pursuant to Article 52(1)(b) of Regulation No 207/2009, account may also be taken of the origin of the word or the sign which forms the mark at issue and of the earlier use of that word or sign in business as a mark, in particular by competing undertakings, and of the commercial logic underlying the filing of the application for registration of that word or that sign as a Community trade mark.

Moreover, the intention of the applicant to prevent a third party from continuing to use the mark is a subjective factor which has to be determined by reference to the objective circumstances of the given case.

(see paras 36-39, 55)
A letter addressed to an awarding authority in which a tenderer asks for a procedure to be suspended and the tenderers reconsidered falls within the provisions of third subparagraph of Article 158a(1) of Regulation No 2342/2002 laying down the detailed rules for implementing the financial regulation, and is thus required to be received within the period of fourteen days laid down in that provision. The objective of a tender procedure would be compromised if it were open to tenderers to send the contracting authority requests, comments or information at any stage of the procedure, thereby requiring the authority to respond and, where necessary, suspend or restart the procedure in order to correct any irregularities.

The obligation of transparency, and the procedure laid down by Regulation No 1605/2002 on the Financial Regulation applicable to the general budget of the European Communities and by Regulation No 2342/2002 laying down the detailed rules for implementing the financial regulation, are infringed where the awarding authority schedules a further meeting of the evaluation committee after adoption of the decision to award the contract to reconsider the tender of a single tenderer without suspending the procedure or informing any of the tenderers who had been notified of the initial decision. By not making a fresh assessment of all the tenders submitted to it, that institution gives different treatment to the tender of one of the tenderers, in breach of the principle of equal treatment.

The contracting institution must comply, at each stage of a tendering procedure, not only with the principle of the equal treatment of tenderers, but also with the principle of transparency. The principle of transparency implies an obligation upon the contracting authority to publish all precise information concerning the conduct of the entire procedure. The principle of transparency involves an obligation on the part of the contracting authority to publish full and precise information concerning the conduct of the entire procedure. The public information objectives that the contracting authority must observe in connection with its duty of transparency are, firstly, to ensure that all tenderers have equal opportunity, and secondly, to protect the legitimate expectations of the selected tenderers. In that regard, under the first and second paragraphs of Article 103 of Regulation No 1605/2002, the awarding authority may, if it finds a significant error after the award of the contract, suspend the procedure for awarding the contract and, where necessary, carry out a fresh assessment of the tenderers’ tenders.

(see paras 58-61)
Case T‑565/12

National Iranian Tanker Company

v

Council of the European Union

‛Common foreign and security policy — Restrictive measures adopted against Iran with the aim of preventing nuclear proliferation — Freezing of funds — Obligation to state reasons — Error of assessment — Adjustment of the temporal effects of an annulment’

Summary — Judgment of the General Court (Seventh Chamber, Extended Composition), 3 July 2014

Acts of the institutions — Statement of reasons — Obligation — Scope — Restrictive measures against Iran — Freezing of funds of persons, entities or bodies engaged in or supporting nuclear proliferation — Decision falling within a context known to the person concerned, enabling him to understand the scope of the measure taken in his regard — Whether a summary statement of reasons is sufficient (Art. 296 TFEU; Council Decision 2012/635/CFSP; Council Regulation No 945/12)

Actions for annulment — Grounds — Lack of or inadequate statement of reasons — Separate ground from the one concerning substantive legality (Arts 263 TFEU and 296 TFEU)

European Union — Judicial review of the legality of the acts of the institutions — Restrictive measures against Iran — Measures in the context of the fight against nuclear proliferation — Ambit of the review (Arts 263 TFEU and 296 TFEU; Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, Art. 47; Council Decision 2012/635/CFSP; Council Regulation No 945/2012)

Common foreign and security policy — Restrictive measures against Iran — Freezing of funds of persons, entities or bodies engaged in or supporting nuclear proliferation — Conduct corresponding to support for such proliferation — None (Council Decision 2012/635/CFSP; Council Regulation No 945/2012)

European Union — Judicial review of the legality of the acts of the institutions — Restrictive measures against Iran — Measures in the context of the fight against nuclear proliferation — Ambit of the review — Assessment of the legality by reference to the information available at the time of adoption of the decision (Arts 263 TFEU and 296 TFEU; Council Decision 2012/635/CFSP; Council Regulation No 945/2012)

EU law — Principles — Rights of defence — Right to effective judicial protection — Restrictive measures against Iran — Freezing of funds of persons, entities or bodies engaged in or supporting nuclear proliferation — Obligation to communicate new inculpatory evidence — Scope (Council Decision 2012/635/CFSP; Council Regulation No 945/2012)
Article 3(a) of Regulation No 6/2002 defines ‘design’ as ‘the appearance of the whole or a part of a product resulting from the features of, in particular, the lines, contours, colours, shape, texture and/or materials of the product itself and/or its ornamentation’. It follows that the protection of a design for the purposes of Article 4(1) of Regulation No 6/2002 consists in the protection of the appearance of a product, that is to say, according to Article 3(b) thereof, any industrial or handicraft item, or of a part of such an item. It is also apparent from recitals 7, 12 and 14 in the preamble to Regulation No 6/2002, which refer to protection of industrial design, to restricting protection to visible elements and to the impression produced on an informed user viewing the product’s appearance, that that regulation confers protection only on the visible parts of the products or parts of products, which may as a result be registered as designs. Therefore, the non-visible characteristics of the product, which do not relate to its appearance, cannot be taken into account in determining whether the design can be protected.

Article 4(2) and (3) of Regulation No 6/2002 have neither the object nor the effect of multiplying the characteristics of a product which may constitute a design under Article 3(a) of that regulation, but rather to lay down a special rule specifically concerning designs applied to or incorporated in a product which constitutes a component part of a complex product within the meaning of Article 3(c) of Regulation No 6/2002. Under that rule, this type of design is protected only if, firstly, the component part, once it has been incorporated into the complex product, remains visible during normal use of that product and, secondly, the visible features of the component part fulfil in themselves the requirements as to novelty and individual character.

Given the particular nature of components of a complex product within the meaning of Article 3(c) of Regulation No 6/2002, which may be produced and marketed separately from the complex product, it is reasonable for the legislature to provide for the possibility of having them registered as designs, subject to their being visible after incorporation into the complex product and only in respect of the visible parts of the components in question at the time of normal use of the complex product and in so far as those parts are new and have individual character.

(see paras 21-23)
Keywords

Subject of the case

Operative part



Keywords

Community trade mark — Appeals procedure — Action before the EU judicature — Jurisdiction of the General Court — Direction issued to the Office — Not included (Council Regulation No 207/2009, Art. 65(6)) (see para. 14)

2. Community trade mark — Appeals procedure — Appeal against a decision of the Opposition Division of OHIM — Examination by the Board of Appeal — Scope — Facts and evidence not produced in support of the opposition within the period prescribed for that purpose — Account taken — Discretion of the Board of Appeal (Council Regulation No 207/2009, Art. 76(2); Commission Regulation No 2868/95, Art. 1, Rules 19(2)(a)(ii), 20(1), and 50(1), third para.) (see paras 22, 23, 34-37, 45)

3. Community trade mark — Observations of third parties and opposition — Examination of the opposition — Proof of use of the earlier mark — Genuine use — Concept — Criteria for assessment (Council Regulation No 207/2009, Art. 42(2) and (3)) (see paras 74-76)

4. Community trade mark — Observations of third parties and opposition — Examination of the opposition — Proof of use of the earlier mark — Genuine use — Use of the mark in a form differing by elements not altering the distinctive character of the mark — Subject-matter and material scope of Article 15(1)(a) of Regulation No 207/2009 (Council Regulation No 207/2009, Art. 15(1), second para., (a)) (see paras 77-79)

Subject of the case

Re:

ACTION brought against the decision of the Fourth Board of Appeal of OHIM of 11 October 2012 (Joined Cases R 274/2011-4 and R 520/2011-4) relating to opposition proceedings between Xavier Grau Ferrer on the one hand and, on the other hand, Juan Cándido Rubio Ferrer and Alberto Rubio Ferrer.

Operative part

Operative part

The Court:

1. Annuls the decision of the Fourth Board of Appeal of the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs) (OHIM) of 11 October 2012 (Joined Cases R 274/2011-4 and R 520/2011-4);

2. Orders OHIM to bear its own costs and pay the costs incurred by Mr Xavier Grau Ferrer;

3. Orders Mr Juan Cándido Rubio Ferrer and Mr Alberto Rubio Ferrer to bear their own costs.
Article 76(1) of Regulation No 207/2009 on the Community trade mark, according to which, in proceedings relating to relative grounds for refusal of registration, OHIM’s examination is restricted to the facts, evidence and arguments provided by the parties, does not preclude OHIM from examining of its own motion the priority of trade mark on which the opposition is based.

Case-law concerning the validity of a Community trade mark on which an opposition is based, cannot be transposed to a claim for priority in respect of such a mark. First of all, entry in the register of a priority date for a Community trade mark cannot, or at least cannot effectively, be challenged in the context of invalidity proceedings. Moreover, there is no other specific procedure allowing a third party to challenge the priority date entered in the register for a Community trade mark that can be compared to invalidity proceedings, one of the features of which is that they cannot be opened by OHIM of its own motion.

Where information required by Articles 1 and 2 of Decision No EX-05-5 of the President of OHIM is not available on the Internet site of a national industrial property office of a Member State, it must, in principle, be submitted in the form of the document referred to in Rule 6(1) of Regulation No 2868/95, that is to say, in the form of a copy certified to be an exact copy of the previous application by the authority which received that application, accompanied by a certificate issued by that authority stating the date on which the previous application was filed. A copy of the application form for registration does not meet those requirements. Even if the copy of the priority document need not be certified by the authority with which the application was filed, it must none the less be a document from which the examiner must be able to determine whether and when the application for the trade mark was received by the national office concerned.

Therefore, save where the required information is available on the Internet site of the authority with which the application was filed, it is for the applicant claiming a priority right for a trade mark itself to submit the priority documents required.

(see paras 77, 78, 82)
3.

European Union — Judicial review of the legality of the acts of the institutions — Restrictive measures against Belarus — Freezing of funds and restrictions on entry into and transit through the territory of the European Union — Ambit of the review (Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, Art. 47; Council Decisions 2012/171/CFSP, 2013/534/CFSP and 2014/24/CFSP; Council Regulations No 265/2012, No 1054/2013 and No 46/2014) (see paras 69-73, 104, 124)
In the area of State aid, the Commission is bound by the guidelines and communications that it adopts, in so far as they do not depart from the rules in the TFEU and are accepted by the Member States. Accordingly, in the case of the sale of a building having involved the use of State resources, carried out in the absence of an open and unconditional tendering procedure, the Commission is entitled to rely on assessments available to it, in accordance with paragraph 2(a) of the Commission Communication on State aid elements in sales of land and buildings by public authorities.

(see paras 40, 41)
71

In view of the foregoing considerations, it is clear that the second head of the first plea is identical to the reasons given by the applicant in support of the second plea alleging infringement of Article 266 TFEU. Accordingly, first of all, it is appropriate to interpret the second head of the first plea in the light of the second plea and, on that basis, to consider that, in respect of that head, the applicant pleads infringement of Article 266 TFEU. Next, with regard to the identical purpose of the second head of the first plea and of the second plea, in that they both seek to establish an infringement of Article 266 TFEU, they should be considered together. Finally, in essence, it is clear from the wording of the first plea that the second part of that plea is based on the finding that its first part is well founded. It is only to the extent that, according to the applicant, the Commission was time-barred from imposing a fine on it for a new amount, that the interest accrued, since provisional payment of the initial fine, by the part of the initial fine equal to the new amount of the fine imposed in Article 1(2) of the contested decision, was illegally retained by the Commission. Consequently, the second plea and the second head of the first plea are both based, in the same way, on the previous finding, expressed by the Court, of the merits of the first part of the first plea.
65

The second aspect of that argument will be examined in the assessment of the condition relating to individual concern at paragraphs 74 to 91 below. The first aspect of the argument cannot be accepted for two reasons. First, the Council refers to no rule of law that would prevent it and the Commission from deciding to impose lower anti-dumping duties at the end of the interim review procedure, in which, moreover, the exporting producers concerned may take part. Indeed, the findings of the review investigation are not to be prejudged, for that could lead to the use of a different method were there to be a change in circumstances within the meaning of Article 11(9) of the basic regulation (now Article 11(9) of Regulation 2016/1036) or if the method initially used were found to be contrary to Article 2 of that regulation (now Article 2 of Regulation 2016/1036) (see, to that effect, judgment of 8 July 2008, Huvis v Council, T‑221/05, not published, EU:T:2008:258, paragraphs 41 and 42). Second, were the Council and the Commission’s position to be accepted, they would be able de facto to avoid judicial review by doing no more than slightly increasing anti-dumping duties following any request for an interim review from the Union industry, even if the proper application of the basic regulation should have given rise to a significantly higher increase. Such a possibility cannot be accepted.