ORDER OF THE GENERAL COURT (Second Chamber)
8 July 2010(*)
(Action for annulment – Application initiating proceedings – Formal requirements – Manifest inadmissibility)
In Case T‑211/10,
Strålfors AB, established in Malmö (Sweden), represented by M.S. Nielsen, lawyer,
applicant,
v
Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs) (OHIM),
defendant,
ACTION against the decision of the Second Board of Appeal of OHIM of 25 January 2010 (Case R 1111/2009-2), concerning an application for registration of word sign ID SOLUTIONS as a Community trade mark,
THE GENERAL COURT (Second Chamber),
composed of I. Pelikánová, President, K. Jürimäe (Rapporteur) and S. Soldevila Fragoso, Judges,
Registrar: E. Coulon,
makes the following
Order
Procedure and form of order sought by the applicant
1 By application lodged at the Court Registry on 3 May 2010, the applicant brought the present action.
2 It claims that the Court should:
– annul the contested decision;
– declare the mark applied for suitable for registration;
– order OHIM to pay the costs.
Law
3 Under Article 111 of the Rules of Procedure of the General Court, where the action is manifestly inadmissible, the General Court may, by reasoned order, and without taking further steps in the proceedings, give a decision on the action.
4 In the present case, the Court considers that it has sufficient information from the documents in the file and decides, pursuant to that article, to give a decision on the action without taking further steps in the proceedings.
5 It must be borne in mind that, by virtue of the first paragraph of Article 21 of the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union, applicable to proceedings before the General Court pursuant to the first paragraph of Article 53 of that Statute, and of Article 44(1)(c) of the Rules of Procedure, an application must state, inter alia, the subject-matter of the proceedings and a summary of the pleas in law on which the application is based. Those elements must be sufficiently clear and precise to enable the defendant to prepare its defence and the Court to rule on the application, where necessary, without further information. In order to guarantee legal certainty and sound administration of justice, it is necessary, for an action to be admissible, that the basic legal and factual particulars on which it is based be indicated, at least in summary form, coherently and intelligibly in the application itself (orders in Case T‑85/92 De Hoe v Commission [1993] ECR II‑523, paragraph 20, and in Case T‑154/98 Asia Motor France and Others v Commission [1999] ECR II‑1703, paragraph 49; and Case T‑277/97 Ismeri Europa v Court of Auditors [1999] ECR II‑1825, paragraph 29).
6 Whilst the body of the application may be supported and supplemented on specific points by references to extracts from documents annexed thereto, a general reference to other documents, even those annexed to the application, cannot make up for the absence of the essential arguments in law which, in accordance with the abovementioned provisions, must appear in the application (order in Asia Motor France and Others v Commission, paragraph 49).
7 Furthermore, it is not for the Court to seek and identify in the annexes the grounds on which it may consider the action to be based, since the annexes have a purely evidential and instrumental function (Case T‑84/96 Cipeke v Commission [1997] ECR II‑2081, paragraph 34).
8 In the present case, the applicant merely asserts that the word sign ID SOLUTIONS is distinctive within the meaning of Article 4 of Council Regulation (EC) No 207/2009 of 26 February 2009 on the Community trade mark (OJ 2009 L 78, p. 1). On that basis, registration of the mark applied for ought, in the applicant’s submission, to be allowed. In addition, it refers to its arguments presented before the Board of Appeal of OHIM and reserves to itself the right to supplement its arguments more fully later.
9 Consequently, the application does not satisfy the minimum requirements of Article 44(1)(c) of the Rules of Procedure.
10 It follows from the foregoing considerations that the present action must be dismissed as manifestly inadmissible.
Costs
11 Since this order has been adopted before the defendant has submitted its response to the Court, the applicant must be ordered to bear its own costs, in accordance with Article 87(1) of the Rules of Procedure.
On those grounds,
THE GENERAL COURT (Second Chamber)
hereby orders:
1. The action is dismissed as inadmissible.
2. Strålfors AB shall bear its own costs.
Luxembourg, 8 July 2010.