The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJ) today dismissed the company’s appeal against a decision by the General Court (formerly the Court of First Instance) in March, in which it ruled that rival beer maker Budejovický Budvar already held the right to use the word Budweiser for beer in Germany and Austria.
The decision upheld a ruling made by OHIM two years earlier.
The case brought before Europe’s top court turned on a legal question related to the evidence that the opponent to a Community trade mark application needs to submit to OHIM.
In 1996, Anheuser-Busch applied to OHIM to register the word Budweiser as a Community trade mark (CTM) for beer.
Czech brewery company Budejovický Budvar opposed the application, relying on its earlier international word mark Budweiser, which it had protected in Germany and Austria. The company provided evidence showing its ownership of the earlier trade mark but the protection expired during the period which OHIM had set for submitting evidence in support of the opposition.
As OHIM had not requested during that period that Budejovický Budvar provide evidence that it had renewed its earlier mark, the company submitted that evidence – on its own initiative – but at a later stage in the opposition proceedings.
Anheuser-Busch asked Europe’s top court to decide whether Budejovický Budvar ought to have submitted evidence of the mark’s renewal within the original period for providing evidence.
Anheuser-Busch challenged the judgment before the Court of Justice, relying inter alia on the argument that, as the protection afforded to the earlier mark had expired before the end of the period fixed for the submission of evidence, Budejovický Budvar ought to have submitted evidence of the mark’s renewal within that period.
Now the CJ has ruled that Budejovický Budvar was not obliged to provide, automatically, within that period evidence of renewal of its earlier mark even though the protection afforded by that mark expired between the date on which notice of opposition had been filed and the end of that period. I
It went on to say that the company would only have been obliged to submit this evidence if OHIM had expressly requested it.
New rules on evidence that came into effect in 2005 now impose an express obligation on an opponent to produce proof of renewal of its earlier trade mark. But the Court said that they may not be applied retroactively to the Budweiser dispute.
