Lancôme parfums et beauté & Cie SNC v Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs) (OHIM).
Date: 2010-02-25
43. Second, such an interpretation does not follow from Joined Cases C‑108/97 and C‑109/97 Windsurfing Chiemsee  [1999] ECR I‑2779, to which Lancôme refers. In paragraph 25 of that judgment, the Court held that the general interest requires that descriptive signs or indications relating to the goods or services in respect of which registration is sought may be freely used by all. It can be inferred from this that the general interest underlying the ground for refusal of registration of a mark because of its descriptiveness is not exclusively the interest of the trade‑mark applicant’s or proprietor’s competitors (who may be subject to some form of constraint and who, on that basis, have an actual or potential economic interest in having the contested mark declared invalid), but a common interest.
50. Second, the reasons put forward, which concern the legal profession, are not related to Article 55(1)(a) of the regulation. Nor does the regulation contain any rules applicable to the exercise of that profession, as such rules are in principle, in the absence of specific rules of European Union law in the field, established by each Member State (see, to that effect, Case C‑3/95 Reisebüro Broede  [1996] ECR I‑6511, paragraph 37, and Case C‑309/99 Wouters and Others  [2002] ECR I‑1577, paragraph 99).
53. A ground of appeal of that nature is inadmissible since, in an appeal, the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice is confined to review of the findings of law on the pleas argued before the General Court (see, to that effect, inter alia, Case C‑266/05 P Sison v Council  [2007] ECR I‑1233, paragraph 95 and the case‑law cited).
61. It is settled case‑law that, as a general rule, the mere combination of elements, each of which is descriptive of characteristics of the goods or services in respect of which registration is sought, itself remains descriptive of those characteristics for the purposes of Article 7(1)(c) of the regulation. However, such a combination may not be descriptive for the purposes of that provision, provided that it creates an impression which is sufficiently far removed from that produced by the combination of those elements (see Case C‑363/99 Koninklijke KPN Nederland  [2004] ECR I‑1619, paragraphs 98 and 99; Case C‑265/00 Campina Melkunie  [2007] ECR I‑1699, paragraphs 39 and 40; and Case C‑273/05 P OHIM  v Celltech  [2007] ECR I‑2883, paragraphs 77 and 78).
62. Thus, a mark consisting of a word composed of elements, each of which is descriptive of characteristics of the goods or services in respect of which registration is sought, is itself descriptive of those characteristics, unless there is a perceptible difference between the word and the mere sum of its parts: that assumes that, because of the unusual nature of the combination in relation to the goods or services, the word creates an impression which is sufficiently far removed from that produced by the mere combination of meanings lent by the elements of which it is composed, with the result that the word is more than the sum of its parts (see Koninklijke KPN Nederland , paragraph 100, and Campina Melkunie , paragraph 41).