Judgment of the General Court of 15 March 2023 – Homy Casa v EUIPO – Albatros International (Chairs)

(Case T-89/22) ¹

(Community design – Invalidity proceedings – Registered Community design representing a chair – Earlier design – Ground for invalidity – Disclosure of the earlier design – Disclosure via the Internet – Identification of the earlier design– Discretion of the Board of Appeal – Article 63(1) of Regulation (EC) No 6/2002)

Language of the case: German

Parties

Applicant: Homy Casa Ltd (Guangzhou, China) (represented by: J. Vogtmeier, lawyer)

Defendant: European Union Intellectual Property Office (represented by: E. Nicolás Gómez and J. Ivanauskas, acting as Agents)

Other party to the proceedings before the Board of Appeal of EUIPO, intervener before the General Court: Albatros International GmbH (Nerdlen, Germany) (represented by: A. Biesterfeld-Kuhn, lawyer)

Re:

By its action under Article 263 TFEU, the applicant seeks the annulment of the decision of the Third Board of Appeal of the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) of 30 November 2021 (Case R 837/2020-3).

Operative part of the judgment

The Court:

Annuls the decision of the Third Board of Appeal of the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) of 30 November 2021 (Case R 837/2020-3);

Orders EUIPO to pay the costs, including the costs necessarily incurred by Homy Casa Ltd for the purposes of the proceedings before the Board of Appeal of EUIPO;

Orders Albatros International GmbH to bear its own costs.

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¹     OJ C 148, 4.4.2022.