Case T-131/03

Gerolsteiner Brunnen GmbH & Co.

v

Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs) (OHIM)

(Community trade mark – Court procedure – Substitution of one party to the dispute – Transfer of rights from the holder of an earlier trade mark)

Summary of the Order

Community trade mark – Appeals procedure – Appeals before the Community judicature – Transfer of the intellectual property right in question – Successor substituted for the former holder of the right – Order of the Court of First Instance needed

(Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, Arts 115 and 116; Council Regulation No 40/94, Art. 63)

Where an intellectual property right at issue in an appeal against a decision of a Board of Appeal of the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs) concerning opposition proceedings is transferred, the new owner of that right, claiming through the party before the Board of Appeal, may be authorised by order to substitute itself for the transferor in the proceedings before the Court of First Instance, where the former owner of the right has no objection and the Court of First Instance, having consulted the other parties to the action, considers it appropriate.

In the absence of any provisions in the Statute of the Court of Justice and the Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance expressly governing the substitution of one party for another, the provisions of Articles 115 and 116 of the Rules of Procedure should be applied by analogy. In particular, the party claiming through the previous litigant must accept the dispute in the state in which it is at the time of the substitution.

(see paras 8-9)