Case T-242/03: Action brought on 23 June 2003 by Ulf Jacoby against the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs)
Date: 2003-08-23
Institutions: Court of First Instance
Subjects: EU trade mark, European Union Intellectual Property Office, action for annulment (EU), pharmaceutical product, trade-mark law

C 200/32

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

23.8.2003

Action brought on 23 June 2003 by Ulf Jacoby against the
Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (Trade
Marks and Designs)

for restitutio in integrum occasioned by his failure to pay the
appeal fee in good time.

(Case T-242/03)

(2003/C 200/57)

(Language of the case to be determined pursuant to Article 131(2) of
the Rules of Procedure — language in which the application was
submitted: German)

An action against the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal
(Trade Marks and Designs) was brought before the
Market
Court of First
the European Communities on
23 June 2003 by Ulf Jacoby, Lahnau (Germany), represented
by K. Müller, lawyer, of Kanzlei Krieger Froese & Kollegen. Leo
Pharmaceutical Products BV, Weesp (Netherlands), was also a
party to the proceedings before the Board of Appeal.

Instance of

The applicant claims that the Court should:

By the contested decision, the Board of Appeal rejected the
application and declared that the appeal was to be regarded as
not having been lodged.

The applicant submits that usually time-limits are entered in a
diary for that purpose kept by his former lawyer in order to
comply with and monitor the time-limits for bringing appeals
and payment of the appeal fee, and the time-limits are only
then crossed out of that diary after they have been observed.
In order to avoid any accidental crossing out of an entry in
the diary, the member of
that lawyer's staff responsible for
overseeing the time-limits is required to initial any crossing out
of a deadline. Since that
long-standing, consistently reliable
member of his staff had crossed out and initialled the time-
limit entered in respect of the appeal case, the lawyer acting
for the applicant was entitled to assume that the appeal fee
had been paid in good time. Since the failure to observe the
time-limit for payment of the appeal fee was not caused by
any fault of the lawyer acting for the applicant, the application
for restitutio in integrum is founded and the action must be
granted.

— annul

the decision of

the Fourth Board of Appeal of
14.3.2003, thereby granting the applicant's application to
the Board of Appeal for restitutio in integrum, occasioned
by his failure to observe the time-limit for payment of the
appeal fee;

— declare that the appeal is to be regarded as having been

lodged.

Pleas in law and main arguments

Action brought on 30 June 2003 by Flavia Angeletti
against the Commission of the European Communities

(Case T-244/03)

(2003/C 200/58)

(Language of the case: French)

the word mark ‘leovat’
The applicant sought registration of
with the defendant office in respect of goods in Classes 3, 4, 5
and 31 (application No 657221). Leo Pharmaceutical Products
BV, proprietor of the international word mark ‘Leo’ for goods
in Classes 3 and 5, lodged an opposition to registration.

An action against the Commission of the European Commu-
nities was brought before the Court of First Instance of the
European Communities on 30 June 2003 by Flavia Angeletti,
residing in Nice (France), represented by Juan Ramon Iturriaga-
goitia and Karine Delvolvé, avocats.

lodged an appeal against

By decision of 6 July 2001, the Opposition Division allowed
the opposition on the ground that there was a likelihood of
confusion owing to the high level of similarity of the goods
and the signs. The applicant
that
decision in good time. On 19 September 2001, the Registry of
the Board of Appeal informed the applicant that the appeal fee
had not been received by the office before the expiry, on
6 September 2001, of the time-limit for bringing an appeal,
and gave the applicant the opportunity to submit his observa-
tions on the matter. On 24 September 2001 the applicant
effected payment of the appeal fee and simultaneously applied

The applicant claims that the Court should:

— annul the decision of

the Directorate-General Personnel

and Administration of 5 May 2003;

— order a challenge to two of the members of the medical

committee;

— order the Commission to pay the costs in their entirety.