Article 41 - Right to good administration
Key facts of the case:
EU trade mark — Opposition proceedings — Application for EU word mark METABOX — Earlier EU and national word marks META4 and earlier EU and national figurative marks meta4 — Relative ground for refusal — Article 8(1)(b) of Regulation (EC) No 207/2009 (now Article 8(1)(b) of Regulation (EU) 2017/1001) — Similarity of the signs — Likelihood of confusion.
Outcome of the case:
THE GENERAL COURT (Third Chamber) hereby:
21) In that regard, it must be recalled that the right to good administration laid down in Article 41 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, by virtue of paragraph 2(c) of that provision, includes, inter alia, the obligation of the administration to give reasons for its decisions. Article 75 of Regulation No 207/2009 specifically imposes that obligation in relation to decisions adopted by EUIPO. According to settled case-law, that obligation to give reasons has the same scope as that arising from Article 296 TFEU, according to which the reasoning of the author of the measure must be clear and unequivocal, and has two purposes: to allow interested parties to know the justification for the measure so as to enable them to protect their rights and to enable the Courts of the European Union to exercise their power to review the legality of the decision (see judgments of 6 September 2012, Storck v OHIM, C‑96/11 P, not published, EU:C:2012:537, paragraph 86 and the case-law cited; of 2 April 2009, Zuffa v OHIM (ULTIMATE FIGHTING CHAMPIONSHIP), T‑118/06, EU:T:2009:100, paragraph 19 and the case-law cited; and of 17 January 2017, Netguru v EUIPO (NETGURU), T‑54/16, not published, EU:T:2017:9, paragraph 14).
