ORDER OF THE VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE COURT
2 February 2023 (*)
(Appeal – EU trade mark – Article 170a(1) of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice – Formal requirements for an appeal – No request that the appeal be allowed to proceed – Appeal inadmissible)
In Case C‑783/22 P,
APPEAL under Article 56 of the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union, brought on 23 December 2022,
Trebor Robert Bilkiewicz, residing in Gdańsk (Poland), represented by P. Ratnicki-Kiczka, adwokat,
appellant,
the other parties to the proceedings being:
The Bazooka Companies Inc., established in New York (United States),
applicant at first instance,
European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO),
defendant at first instance,
THE VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE COURT
makes the following
Order
1 By his appeal, Mr Trebor Robert Bilkiewicz seeks to have set aside the judgment of the General Court of the European Union of 26 October 2022, The Bazooka Companies v EUIPO – Bilkiewicz (Shape of a baby’s bottle) (T‑273/21; ‘the judgment under appeal’, EU:T:2022:675), by which the General Court granted The Bazooka Companies Inc. leave to replace The Topps Company Inc. as applicant and annulled the decision of the Second Board of Appeal of the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) of 10 March 2021 (Case R 1326/2020-2), relating to revocation proceedings between Mr Bilkiewicz and The Topps Company.
2 Under the first paragraph of Article 58a of the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union, an appeal brought against a decision of the General Court concerning a decision of an independent Board of Appeal of EUIPO is not to proceed unless the Court of Justice first decides that it should be allowed to do so.
3 Accordingly, the present appeal falls within the scope of Article 58a of that statute.
4 Under Article 170a(1) of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice, in the situations referred to in the first paragraph of Article 58a of that statute, the appellant is to annex to the appeal a request that the appeal be allowed to proceed, setting out the issue raised by the appeal that is significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law and containing all the information necessary to enable the Court to rule on that request. If there is no such request, the Vice-President of the Court must declare the appeal inadmissible.
5 In the present case, since the judgment under appeal was notified to the appellant on 26 October 2022, the time limit for lodging an appeal expired on 6 January 2023.
6 The appeal against that judgment was received at the Court Registry on 23 December 2022. However, the appellant did not annex to his appeal a request that the appeal be allowed to proceed, but merely inserted into the body of the appeal a part VIII, referred to as the ‘Request that the appeal be allowed to proceed’, thus failing to comply with Article 170a(1) of the Rules of Procedure.
7 Nor did the appellant subsequently remedy the failure to comply with the requirement laid down in that provision.
8 In those circumstances, the appeal must, in accordance with that provision, be dismissed as inadmissible.
Costs
9 Under Article 137 of the Rules of Procedure, applicable to proceedings on appeal pursuant to Article 184(1) of those rules, a decision as to costs is to be given in the order which closes the proceedings.
10 Since the present order was adopted before the appeal was served on the other parties to the proceedings and, therefore, before they could have incurred costs, it is appropriate to decide that the appellant is to bear his own costs.
On those grounds, the Vice-President of the Court hereby orders:
1. The appeal is dismissed as inadmissible.
2. Mr Trebor Robert Bilkiewicz shall bear his own costs.
Luxembourg, 2 February 2023.
A. Calot Escobar | | L. Bay Larsen |