The European Court has ruled in case C‑421/20 Acacia Srl v Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, which targets the issue of Community design enforcement and the applicable national jurisdiction. The case has the following background:
Acacia is a company incorporated under Italian law which produces, in Italy, wheel rims for motor vehicles and distributes them in a number of Member States.
Taking the view that Acacia’s distribution of certain wheel rims in Germany constitutes an infringement of a registered Community design of which it is the holder, BMW brought an action for infringement before a Community design court designated by the Federal Republic of Germany. That court declared that it had jurisdiction pursuant to Article 82(5) of Regulation No 6/2002. Acacia, in its capacity as defendant, argued that the wheel rims at issue are covered by Article 110 of that regulation and that there is therefore no infringement.
That court held that Acacia had committed the acts of infringement alleged by BMW, ordered that the infringement be brought to an end and, referring to Article 8(2) of Regulation No 864/2007, applied German law to BMW’s ‘supplementary’ claims seeking damages, the provision of information, the provision of documents, the surrender of accounts and the handing over of infringing products with a view to their being destroyed. On the basis of the rules contained in that national law, those claims were, in essence, upheld.
Acacia brought an appeal before the referring court. It disputes the existence of an infringement and takes the view, furthermore, that the law applicable to BMW’s supplementary claims is Italian law.
The referring court states that the jurisdiction of the Community design courts designated by the Federal Republic of Germany arises, in the present case, from Article 82(5) of Regulation No 6/2002 and that Acacia has committed the acts of infringement alleged by BMW.
However, it has doubts as to which national law applies to BMW’s supplementary claims. The referring court observes that the outcome of the dispute will, to some extent, depend on that question, since the rules of German law on the provision of documents and the surrender of accounts differ from those of Italian law.
That court considers that it could follow from Article 8(2) of Regulation No 864/2007, as interpreted by the Court in the judgment of 27 September 2017, Nintendo (C‑24/16 and C‑25/16, EU:C:2017:724), that Italian law applies in the present case. The referring court finds, in that regard, that the event giving rise to the damage is located in Italy, since the products at issue were delivered to Germany from that other Member State.
Nevertheless, the infringing products at issue in the main proceedings were sold in Germany and, to that end, were advertised online to consumers located in the territory of that Member State.
In those circumstances the Higher Regional Court, Düsseldorf, Germany decided to stay the proceedings and to refer the following questions to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling:
‘1. In proceedings for an infringement of Community designs, can the national court dealing with the infringement proceedings having international jurisdiction pursuant to Article 82(5) of [Regulation No 6/2002] apply the national law of the Member State in which the court dealing with the infringement proceedings is situated (lex fori) to [supplementary] claims in relation to the territory of its Member State?
2. If Question 1 is answered in the negative: Can the “initial place of infringement” for the purposes of the [Court in judgment of [27 September 2017, Nintendo (C‑24/16 and C‑25/16, EU:C:2017:724)] regarding the determination of the law applicable to [supplementary] claims under Article 8(2) of [Regulation No 864/2007] also lie in the Member State where the consumers to whom internet advertising is addressed are located and where goods infringing designs are put on the market within the meaning of Article 19 of [Regulation No 6/2002], in so far as only the offering and the putting on the market in that Member State are challenged, even if the internet offers on which the offering and the putting on the market are based were launched in another Member State?’
The Court’s decision:
Article 88(2) and Article 89(1)(d) of Council Regulation (EC) No 6/2002 of 12 December 2001 of Community designs, and Article 8(2) of Regulation (EC) No 864/2007 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 July 2007 on the law applicable to non-contractual obligations (Rome II) must be interpreted as meaning that the Community design courts before which an action for infringement pursuant to Article 82(5) of Regulation No 6/2002 is brought concerning acts of infringement committed or threatened within a single Member State must examine the claims supplementary to that action, seeking the award of damages, the submission of information, documents and accounts and the handing over of the infringing products with a view to their being destroyed, on the basis of the law of the Member State in which the acts allegedly infringing the Community design relied upon are committed or are threatened, which is the same, in the circumstances of an action brought pursuant to that Article 82(5), as the law of the Member State in which those courts are situated.
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY PLANET 