CELEX: C2002/289/20
Language: en
Date: 2002-11-23 00:00:00
Title: 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

C 289/12                EN                     Official Journal of the European Communities                                     23.11.2002
      enables the relevant class of persons to distinguish the            at the Court Registry on 23 September 2002, for a preliminary
      services in question from services of another business              ruling in the proceedings between Saatgut-Treuhandverwal-
      source. Instead the Court based its view that the sign in           tungs-GmbH and Brangewitz GmbH on the following ques-
      question fell within the scope of Article 7(1)(b) of the            tions concerning the interpretation of Article 14(3), sixth
      Regulation on the fact that it did not satisfy criteria for         indent, of Council Regulation (EC) No 2100/94 (1) of 27 July
      protection governed by other provisions. It interprets              1994 on Community Plant variety rights (OJ 1994 L 227,
      Article 7(1)(b) as a catch-all provision for cases in which         p. 1) in conjunction with Article 9 of Commission Regulation
      the trade marks applied for, despite having descriptive             (EC) No 1768/95 ( 2) of 24 July 1995:
      character, do not fall within the scope of the grounds
      for rejecting protection under Article 7(1)(c) of the               1.     Are the abovementioned provisions to be interpreted as
      Regulation.                                                                meaning that the holder of a variety protected under
                                                                                 Regulation No 2100/94 can request the supplier of
      The splitting by the Court of the trade mark ‘SAT.2’ into                  processing services or the processor to provide the
      its component parts does not reflect the view and
                                                                                 information specified in those provisions, regardless of
      approach adopted by consumers. The distinctive charac-                     whether there is any evidence that the supplier of
      ter or lack of distinctive character of the trade mark must                processsing services has supplied a processing service in
      to some degree be apparent ‘at first sight’.                               respect of the protected variety concerned or that the
                                                                                 processor has processed the protected variety concerned?
(in the alternative)                                                      2.     If there must be evidence for the factual situation referred
                                                                                 to in Question 1:
—     Infringement of the principle of equal treatment: it may
                                                                                 Must the supplier of processing services or processor
      be correct that a person cannot rely on a failure to apply
                                                                                 provide information pursuant to Article 14(3), sixth
      the law which has benefitted another person. In the
                                                                                 indent, of Regulation No 2100/94 in conjunction with
      present case, however, the appellant did not point to
                                                                                 Article 9 of Regulation No 1768/95 with regard to all the
      wrongly-decided isolated cases, but to the Office’s clearly
                                                                                 farmers to whom he has supplied the processing service
      recognisable general practice of allowing in principle
                                                                                 in respect of the protected variety concerned and/or for
      applications for registration of trademarks consisting of a
                                                                                 whom he has carried out the processing of the protected
      combination of numbers and descriptive indications/
                                                                                 variety concerned, or only with regard to those farmers
      abbreviations. The appellant refers in this connection in
                                                                                 in respect of whom the holder has evidence that the
      particular to the trademarks ‘T-SAT’ (00 918 409), ‘One
                                                                                 supplier of processing services has supplied processing
      Tel’ (001 096 312, 000 983 973, 001 105 089), ‘MEDIA
                                                                                 services in respect of the protected variety concerned
      4’ (001 179 530, ‘CAR ONE’ (000 707 430), ‘D1’ (000
                                                                                 and/or the processor has carried out the processing of the
      920 157) and ‘B-MAIL’ (000 896 399).
                                                                                 protected variety concerned?
( 1) OJ 2002 C 202, p. 23.
                                                                          (1 ) OJ L 227, p. 1.
( 2) OJ 2001 C 4, p. 5.
                                                                          (2 ) OJ L 173, p. 14.
Reference for a preliminary ruling by the Landgericht                     Action brought on 24 September 2002 by Commission
Düsseldorf by order of that Court of 17 September 2002                       of the European Communities against French Republic
in the proceedings between Saatgut-Treuhandverwal-
             tungs-GmbH and Brangewitz GmbH
                                                                                                   (Case C-340/02)
                         (Case C-336/02)
                                                                                                   (2002/C 289/21)
                         (2002/C 289/20)
                                                                          An action against the French Republic was brought before the
                                                                          Court of Justice of the European Communities on 24 Septem-
Reference has been made to the Court of Justice of the                    ber 2002 by the Commission of the European Communities,
European Communities by order of the Landgericht Düsseldorf               represented by M. Nolin, acting as Agent, with an address for
(Regional Court, Düsseldorf) of 17 September 2002, received               service in Luxembourg.