Case T‑186/12

Copernicus-Trademarks Ltd

v

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

(Community trade mark — Opposition proceedings — Application for Community word mark LUCEA LED — Earlier Community word mark LUCEO — Lack of precedence — Claiming of priority — Priority date entered in the register — Priority documents — Examination by OHIM of its own motion — Rights of the defence)

Summary — Judgment of the General Court (Ninth Chamber), 25 June 2015

1.      Community trade mark — Procedural provisions — Examination of the facts of the Office’s own motion — Opposition proceedings — Examination restricted to the submissions of the parties — Limits — Examination of priority — Considered of Court’s own motion

(Council Regulation No 207/2009, Art. 76(1))

2.      Community trade mark — Lodging the application for a Community trade mark — Right of priority — Trade mark application accompanied by a claim for priority — Examination of the formal and substantive conditions by OHIM — Priority date entered on the register — Effect

(Council Regulation No 207/2009, Arts 29 and 30; Commission Regulation No 2868/95, Art. 1, Rule 6)

3.      Community trade mark — Lodging the application for a Community trade mark — Right of priority — Trade mark application accompanied by a claim for priority — Examination of the formal and substantive conditions by OHIM — Priority documents required — Copy of the application form for registration — Not included

(Council Regulation No 207/2009, Arts 29 and 30; Commission Regulation No 2868/95, Art. 1, Rule 6)

4.      Community trade mark — Procedural provisions — Decisions of the Office — Observance of the rights of the defence — Scope of the principle

(Council Regulation No 207/2009, Art. 75, second sentence)

1.      Article 76(1) of Regulation No 207/2009 on the Community trade mark, according to which, in proceedings relating to relative grounds for refusal of registration, OHIM’s examination is restricted to the facts, evidence and arguments provided by the parties, does not preclude OHIM from examining of its own motion the priority of trade mark on which the opposition is based.

(see paras 36, 39, 40)

2.      The examiner’s entry in the register of a priority date for a Community trade mark does not preclude OHIM, in opposition proceedings, from examining whether the conditions for a priority claim are satisfied.

Case-law concerning the validity of a Community trade mark on which an opposition is based, cannot be transposed to a claim for priority in respect of such a mark. First of all, entry in the register of a priority date for a Community trade mark cannot, or at least cannot effectively, be challenged in the context of invalidity proceedings. Moreover, there is no other specific procedure allowing a third party to challenge the priority date entered in the register for a Community trade mark that can be compared to invalidity proceedings, one of the features of which is that they cannot be opened by OHIM of its own motion.

(see paras 47-51, 54, 55)

3.      Where information required by Articles 1 and 2 of Decision No EX-05-5 of the President of OHIM is not available on the Internet site of a national industrial property office of a Member State, it must, in principle, be submitted in the form of the document referred to in Rule 6(1) of Regulation No 2868/95, that is to say, in the form of a copy certified to be an exact copy of the previous application by the authority which received that application, accompanied by a certificate issued by that authority stating the date on which the previous application was filed. A copy of the application form for registration does not meet those requirements. Even if the copy of the priority document need not be certified by the authority with which the application was filed, it must none the less be a document from which the examiner must be able to determine whether and when the application for the trade mark was received by the national office concerned.

Therefore, save where the required information is available on the Internet site of the authority with which the application was filed, it is for the applicant claiming a priority right for a trade mark itself to submit the priority documents required.

(see paras 77, 78, 82)

4.      See the text of the decision.

(see para. 91)