Joined Cases T‑828/14 and T‑829/14

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European Union Intellectual Property Office

(Community design — Invalidity proceedings — Registered Community designs representing thermosiphons for radiators — Earlier designs — Plea of unlawfulness — Article 1(d) of Regulation (EC) No 216/96 — Article 41(1) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights — Principle of impartiality — Composition of the Board of Appeal — Ground for invalidity — No individual character — Article 6 and Article 25(1)(b) of Regulation (EC) No 6/2002 — Enforcement by EUIPO of a judgment setting aside a decision of one of its Boards of Appeal — Saturation of the state of the art — Date of assessment)

Summary — Judgment of the General Court (Second Chamber), 16 February 2017

1.      Judicial proceedings — Introduction of new pleas during the proceedings — Conditions — Amplification of an existing, closely linked plea

(Rules of Procedure of the General Court, Art. 84(1))

2.      Community designs — Appeals procedure — Action before the EU judicature — Actions for annulment — Plea of illegality — Incidental nature — Lawfulness

(Arts 263 TFEU and 277 TFEU; Council Regulation No 6/2002, Art. 61(2))

3.      Community designs — Appeals procedure — Boards of Appeal — Classification as administration of the Office — No right of the parties to a fair ‘process’

(Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, Article 41(1); Commission Regulation No 216/96, Art. 1d)

4.      Community designs — Ground for invalidity — No individual character — Design not giving the informed user a different overall impression from that produced by the earlier design — Overall assessment of all the elements of the prior design

(Council Regulation No 6/2002, Art. 6(1) and (2))

5.      Community designs — Ground for invalidity — No individual character — Design not giving the informed user a different overall impression from that produced by the earlier design — Saturation of the state of the art — Relevance

(Council Regulation No 6/2002, Art. 6(1) and (2))

6.      Community designs — Ground for invalidity — No individual character — Design not giving the informed user a different overall impression from that produced by the earlier design — Informed user — Concept

(Council Regulation No 6/2002, Arts 6(1), and 25(1)(b))

7.      Community designs — Ground for invalidity — No individual character — Design not giving the informed user a different overall impression from that produced by the earlier design — Saturation of the state of the art — Date of assessment

(Council Regulation No 6/2002, Art. 6(1))

8.      Community designs — Procedural provisions — Statement of reasons for decisions

(Art. 296 TFEU; Council Regulation No 6/2002, Art. 62, first sentence)

9.      Community designs — Procedural provisions — Examination of the facts of the Office’s own motion — Duty of diligence — Action for invalidity — Examination restricted to the submissions of the parties — Well-known facts taken into account

(Council Regulation No 6/2002, Art. 63(1))

10.    Community designs — Decisions of the Office — Principle of equal treatment — Principle of sound administration — EUIPO’s previous decision-making practice — Principle of legality — Need for a strict and complete examination in each particular case

(Council Regulation No 6/2002)

1.      See the text of the decision.

(see para. 24)

2.      The fact that Regulation No 6/2002 on Community designs does not expressly mention the plea of unlawfulness as a collateral legal remedy which persons bringing actions may use before the General Court when seeking the annulment or alteration of a decision of a Board of Appeal of the European Union Intellectual Property Office does not mean that they cannot raise such a plea in those actions. That right is apparent from the general principle that Article 277 TFEU confers upon any party to proceedings the right to challenge, for the purposes of obtaining the annulment of a decision of direct and individual concern to that party, the validity of previous acts of the institutions which form the legal basis of the decision under challenge, if that party was not entitled under Article 263 TFEU to bring a direct action challenging those acts and by which it was thus affected without having been in a position to seek to have them declared void.

(see para. 31)

3.      Proceedings before the Boards of Appeal of EUIPO are administrative and not judicial in nature. The General Court has held that there is no rule of law or principle which prevents an administration from entrusting to the same officials re-examination of a case in compliance with a judgment annulling a decision, and that it cannot be stated as a general rule resulting from the obligation to be impartial that an administrative or judicial authority is bound to send the case back to a different authority or to a differently composed branch of that authority. Accordingly, the referral by the Presidium back to the same Chamber that ruled on it previously, pursuant to Article 1(d) of Regulation No 216/96 and without any obligation to compose that chamber differently, does not infringe the administration’s obligation of impartiality under Article 41(1) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.

(see paras 38-40)

4.      See the text of the decision.

(see paras 53, 54)

5.      See the text of the decision.

(see para. 55)

6.      See the text of the decision.

(see para. 56)

7.      It is by reference to the date on which the application for registration of the design is filed that the individual character of the contested design must be assessed under Article 6(1) of Regulation No 6/2002 and a determination made as to whether there is saturation of the state of the art.

(see para. 63)

8.      See the text of the decision.

(see paras 74, 82)

9.      See the text of the decision.

(see paras 90, 91)

10.    See the text of the decision.

(see para. 93)