Case C-336/02: Reference for a preliminary ruling by the Landgericht Düsseldorf by order of that Court of 17 September 2002 in the proceedings between Saatgut-Treuhandverwaltungs-GmbH and Brangewitz GmbH
Date: 2002-11-23
Institutions: Court of Justice
Subjects: crop production, interpretation of the law, plant propagation, provision of services

C 289/12

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

23.11.2002

enables the relevant class of persons to distinguish the
services in question from services of another business
source. Instead the Court based its view that the sign in
question fell within the scope of Article 7(1)(b) of the
Regulation on the fact that it did not satisfy criteria for
protection governed by other provisions. It interprets
Article 7(1)(b) as a catch-all provision for cases in which
the trade marks applied for, despite having descriptive
character, do not fall within the scope of the grounds
for rejecting protection under Article 7(1)(c) of the
Regulation.

The splitting by the Court of the trade mark ‘SAT.2’ into
its component parts does not reflect
the view and
approach adopted by consumers. The distinctive charac-
ter or lack of distinctive character of the trade mark must
to some degree be apparent ‘at first sight’.

(in the alternative)

— Infringement of the principle of equal treatment: it may
be correct that a person cannot rely on a failure to apply
the law which has benefitted another person. In the
present case, however, the appellant did not point to
wrongly-decided isolated cases, but to the Office’s clearly
recognisable general practice of allowing in principle
applications for registration of trademarks consisting of a
combination of numbers and descriptive indications/
abbreviations. The appellant refers in this connection in
particular to the trademarks ‘T-SAT’ (00 918 409), ‘One
Tel’ (001 096 312, 000 983 973, 001 105 089), ‘MEDIA
4’ (001 179 530, ‘CAR ONE’ (000 707 430), ‘D1’ (000
920 157) and ‘B-MAIL’ (000 896 399).

at the Court Registry on 23 September 2002, for a preliminary
ruling in the proceedings between Saatgut-Treuhandverwal-
tungs-GmbH and Brangewitz GmbH on the following ques-
tions concerning the interpretation of Article 14(3), sixth
indent, of Council Regulation (EC) No 2100/94 (1) of 27 July
1994 on Community Plant variety rights (OJ 1994 L 227,
p. 1) in conjunction with Article 9 of Commission Regulation
(EC) No 1768/95 (2) of 24 July 1995:

1. Are the abovementioned provisions to be interpreted as
meaning that the holder of a variety protected under
Regulation No 2100/94 can request the supplier of
processing services or the processor to provide the
information specified in those provisions, regardless of
whether there is any evidence that
the supplier of
processsing services has supplied a processing service in
respect of the protected variety concerned or that the
processor has processed the protected variety concerned?

2.

If there must be evidence for the factual situation referred
to in Question 1:

Must the supplier of processing services or processor
provide information pursuant
to Article 14(3), sixth
indent, of Regulation No 2100/94 in conjunction with
Article 9 of Regulation No 1768/95 with regard to all the
farmers to whom he has supplied the processing service
in respect of the protected variety concerned and/or for
whom he has carried out the processing of the protected
variety concerned, or only with regard to those farmers
in respect of whom the holder has evidence that the
supplier of processing services has supplied processing
services in respect of the protected variety concerned
and/or the processor has carried out the processing of the
protected variety concerned?

( 1) OJ 2002 C 202, p. 23.
( 2) OJ 2001 C 4, p. 5.

(1) OJ L 227, p. 1.
(2) OJ L 173, p. 14.

Reference for a preliminary ruling by the Landgericht
Düsseldorf by order of that Court of 17 September 2002
in the proceedings between Saatgut-Treuhandverwal-
tungs-GmbH and Brangewitz GmbH

Action brought on 24 September 2002 by Commission
of the European Communities against French Republic

(Case C-336/02)

(2002/C 289/20)

(Case C-340/02)

(2002/C 289/21)

Reference has been made to the Court of Justice of the
European Communities by order of the Landgericht Düsseldorf
(Regional Court, Düsseldorf) of 17 September 2002, received

An action against the French Republic was brought before the
Court of Justice of the European Communities on 24 Septem-
ber 2002 by the Commission of the European Communities,
represented by M. Nolin, acting as Agent, with an address for
service in Luxembourg.