C-868/25

ORDER OF THE COURT (Chamber determining whether appeals may proceed) 30 April 2026 (*) ( Appeal – EU trade mark – Determination as to whether appeals should be allowed to proceed – Article 170b of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice – Appeal failing to demonstrate that an issue is significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law – Refusal to allow the appeal to proceed ) In Case C‑868/25 P, APPEAL under Article 56 of the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union, brought on 29 December 2025, European Lotto and Betting ltd., established in Birkirkara (Malta), represented by D. Selmi, Barrister-at-Law, appellant, the other parties to the proceedings being: European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), defendant at first instance, Multi-State Lottery Association, established in Johnston (United States), intervener at first instance, THE COURT (Chamber determining whether appeals may proceed), composed of T. von Danwitz, Vice-President of the Court, I. Ziemele and A. Kumin (Rapporteur), Judges, Registrar: A. Calot Escobar, having regard to the proposal from the Judge-Rapporteur and after hearing the Advocate General, R. Norkus, makes the following Order 1        By its appeal, European Lotto and Betting ltd. asks the Court of Justice to set aside the judgment of the General Court of the European Union of 29 October 2025, European Lotto and Betting v EUIPO – Multi-State Lottery Association (Powerball) (T‑375/24, ‘the contested judgment’, EU:T:2025:998), by which the General Court dismissed its action for annulment in part of the decision of the First Board of Appeal of the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) of 23 May 2024 (Case R 1915/2022-1), relating to invalidity proceedings between Multi-State Lottery Association and European Lotto and Betting. The request that the appeal be allowed to proceed 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        In accordance with the third paragraph of Article 58a of that statute, an appeal is to be allowed to proceed, wholly or in part, in accordance with the detailed rules set out in the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice, where it raises an issue that is significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law. 4        Under Article 170a(1) of the Rules of Procedure, 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 of Justice to rule on that request. 5        In accordance with Article 170b(1) and (3) of the Rules of Procedure, the Court of Justice is to rule as soon as possible on the request that the appeal be allowed to proceed, in the form of a reasoned order. Arguments of the appellant 6        In support of its request that the appeal be allowed to proceed, the appellant submits that the single ground of its appeal, alleging infringement of Article 52(1)(b) of Council Regulation (EC) No 207/2009 of 26 February 2009 on the European Union trade mark (OJ 2009 L 78, p. 1), raises issues that are significant with respect to the unity, consistency and development of EU law. 7        It submits, in particular, that the General Court, in holding that the proprietor of the contested mark had acted in bad faith, disregarded the settled case-law of the Court of Justice, in particular the judgment of 29 January 2020, Sky and Others (C‑371/18, EU:C:2020:45), according to which the purpose of the ground for invalidity of an already registered trade mark is twofold; first, to prevent bad faith vis-à-vis specific third parties and, second, to prevent abuse of the trade mark registration system at large. According to the appellant, the General Court found, in essence, that the ‘referential use’ of an EU trade mark to the Powerball lottery operated in the United States since 1992 by Multi-State Lottery Association was sufficient to establish bad faith on the part of the appellant when registering that mark, without any misuse or abuse of the registration system having been established. 8        In addition, the appellant submits that it is not aware of any other case in which ‘referential use’ of an EU trade mark would have been considered to constitute bad faith in circumstances where the proprietor of such a mark had taken the necessary steps to ensure that there were no other unused rights capable of coming into conflict in the European Union with the mark at issue, and had, moreover, defended that mark in opposition proceedings. 9        According to the appellant, its appeal raises a significant issue of law relating to the interpretation of the concept of ‘bad faith’, which is an autonomous concept of EU law which must be interpreted uniformly throughout the European Union, in order not to undermine, first, the presumption of good faith enjoyed by trade mark applications and, second, the legal certainty of the registration system. It adds that clarification by the Court of Justice is necessary in order to avoid a broad interpretation of that concept and to preserve the unity, consistency and development of EU law. Findings of the Court 10      As a preliminary point, it must be recalled that it is for the appellant to demonstrate that the issues raised by its appeal are significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law (orders of 10 December 2021, EUIPO v The KaiKai Company Jaeger Wichmann, C‑382/21 P, EU:C:2021:1050, paragraph 20, and of 19 January 2026, Hesse v Ferrari and EUIPO, C‑598/25 P, EU:C:2026:25, paragraph 11). 11      Furthermore, as is apparent from the third paragraph of Article 58a of the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union, read together with Article 170a(1) and Article 170b(4) of the Rules of Procedure, the request that an appeal be allowed to proceed must contain all the information necessary to enable the Court to give a ruling on whether the appeal should be allowed to proceed and to specify, where the appeal is allowed to proceed in part, the pleas in law or parts of the appeal to which the response must relate. Given that the objective of the mechanism provided for in Article 58a of that statute whereby the Court determines whether an appeal should be allowed to proceed is to restrict review by the Court to issues that are significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law, only grounds of appeal that raise such issues and that are established by the appellant are to be examined by the Court in an appeal (orders of 10 December 2021, EUIPO v The KaiKai Company Jaeger Wichmann, C‑382/21 P, EU:C:2021:1050, paragraph 21, and of 19 January 2026, Hesse v Ferrari and EUIPO, C‑598/25 P, EU:C:2026:25, paragraph 12). 12      Accordingly, a request that an appeal be allowed to proceed must, in any event, set out clearly and in detail the grounds on which the appeal is based, identify with equal clarity and detail the issue of law raised by each ground of appeal, specify whether that issue is significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law and set out the specific reasons why that issue is significant according to that criterion. As regards, in particular, the grounds of appeal, the request that an appeal be allowed to proceed must specify the provision of EU law or the case-law that has been infringed by the contested judgment or order, explain succinctly the nature of the error of law allegedly committed by the General Court, and indicate to what extent that error had an effect on the outcome of the contested judgment or order. Where the error of law relied on results from an infringement of the case-law, the request that the appeal be allowed to proceed must explain, in a succinct but clear and precise manner, first, where the alleged contradiction lies, by identifying the paragraphs of the contested judgment or order which the appellant is calling into question as well as those of the ruling of the Court of Justice or the General Court alleged to have been infringed, and, second, the concrete reasons why such a contradiction raises an issue that is significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law (orders of 10 December 2021, EUIPO v The KaiKai Company Jaeger Wichmann, C‑382/21 P, EU:C:2021:1050, paragraph 22, and of 19 January 2026, Hesse v Ferrari and EUIPO, C‑598/25 P, EU:C:2026:25, paragraph 13). 13      A request that an appeal be allowed to proceed which does not contain the information mentioned in the preceding paragraph of the present order cannot be capable of demonstrating that the appeal raises an issue that is significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law that justifies the appeal being allowed to proceed (orders of 24 October 2019, Porsche v EUIPO, C‑613/19 P, EU:C:2019:905, paragraph 16, and of 19 January 2026, Hesse v Ferrari and EUIPO, C‑598/25 P, EU:C:2026:25, paragraph 14). 14      In the present case, in the first place, as regards the line of argument summarised in paragraph 7 of the present order, according to which the General Court departed from the case-law of the Court of Justice, it should be noted that the appellant does not indicate what the alleged contradiction consists of. The appellant does not identify, to that end, either the paragraphs of the contested judgment which it seeks to call into question or those of the case-law of the Court of Justice which have been infringed. In any event, such a line of argument is not, in itself, sufficient to establish, in accordance with the burden of proof which lies with the appellant requesting that an appeal be allowed to proceed, that that appeal raises an issue that is significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law. To that end, the appellant must comply with all the requirements set out in paragraph 12 of the present order (see, to that effect, order of 2 December 2025, Giuliani v EUIPO, C‑365/25 P, EU:C:2025:1022, paragraph 18 and the case-law cited). 15      The appellant has not set out, with sufficient clarity and precision, the specific reasons why such a contradiction, assuming it to be established, raises an issue that is significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law. Nor does the appellant provide any information as to the similarity of the situations referred to in the allegedly disregarded case-law, which would make it possible to establish the existence of the contradiction relied on. 16      In the second place, as regards the line of argument summarised in paragraphs 8 and 9 of the present order, in so far as the appellant claims that the Court of Justice has never ruled on the issue put forward by the appellant, it must be borne in mind that the fact that an issue of law has not been examined by the Court does not mean that that issue is necessarily significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law, since the party requesting that an appeal be allowed to proceed remains bound to demonstrate such significance by providing detailed information not only on the novelty of that issue, but also on the reasons why that issue is particularly significant in that regard (see, to that effect, order of 8 May 2024, Wyrębski v QC and Others, C‑688/23 P, EU:C:2024:423, paragraph 23 and the case-law cited). In order to demonstrate that that is the case, it is necessary to establish both the existence and significance of such an issue by means of concrete evidence specific to the particular case, and not simply arguments of a general nature (order of 10 December 2021, EUIPO v The KaiKai Company Jaeger Wichmann, C‑382/21 P, EU:C:2021:1050, paragraph 28 and the case-law cited). 17      In the present case, the appellant has failed to demonstrate this, but merely states, in general terms, that the Court of Justice has not yet ruled expressly on the issue at hand and that clarification on its part is necessary in order to avoid a broad interpretation of the concept of ‘bad faith’. 18      The appellant has accordingly failed to satisfy all of the requirements referred to in paragraphs 10 to 13 of the present order. 19      In those circumstances, the appellant’s request that the appeal be allowed to proceed is not such as to establish that the appeal raises an issue that is significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law. 20      In the light of the foregoing considerations, the appeal should not be allowed to proceed. Costs 21      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. 22      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 its own costs. On those grounds, the Court (Chamber determining whether appeals may proceed) hereby orders: 1.      The appeal is not allowed to proceed. 2.      European Lotto and Betting ltd. shall bear its own costs. Luxembourg, 30 April 2026. A. Calot Escobar T. von Danwitz Registrar President of the Chamber determining whether appeals may proceed *      Language of the case: English.