DECISION

of the Fifth Board of Appeal

of 11 January 2017

In Case R 1359/2016-5

 

FocusVision Worldwide, Inc.
1266 East Main Street Stamford Connecticut 06902 United States of America	Applicant / Appellant

represented by Reed Smith Llp, Von-der-Tann-Straße 2, 80539 München, Germany

APPEAL relating to European Union trade mark application No 14 599 625

THE FIFTH BOARD OF APPEAL

composed of G. Humphreys (Chairperson and Rapporteur), as a single Member having regard to Article 135(2) and (5) EUTMR, Article 1(c)(2) BoA-RP and Article 10 of the Decision of the Presidium on the organisation of the Boards of Appeal as currently in force, and to the Fifth Board’s Resolution No 1 of 2 February 2015 on decisions by a single Member

Registrar: H. Dijkema

gives the following

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Decision

Summary of the facts

1. By an application filed on 25 September 2015, FocusVision Worldwide, Inc. (‘the applicant’) sought to register the word mark

RESEARCHREPORTER

for the following list of services:

Class 42 – Software as a service (SaaS) services featuring software for the collection, storage, organization, management, searching, manipulation and analysis of data in the fields of marketing, marketing research, qualitative and quantitative research and focus groups; software as a service (SaaS) services featuring software for management of marketing and market research projects, including creation and tracking of budgets for such projects and management of vendors.

2. Following a preliminary notice issued by the Office on 20 November 2015 and observations thereto submitted by the applicant on 17 March 2016, the examiner took a decision (‘the contested decision’) on 26 May 2016, stating that the application was not eligible for registration under Article 7(1)(b) and (c) in conjunction with Article 7(2) EUTMR, in respect all of the services.
3. On 26 July 2016, the applicant filed a notice of appeal against the contested decision.
4. On 7 October 2016, the Registry of the Boards of Appeal sent a notification to the applicant pointing out that a written statement setting out the grounds of appeal had to be submitted within four months after the date of notification of the decision appealed against. Since no such written statement had been received by the Office within the said time-limit, the appeal was likely to be dismissed as inadmissible.
5. No Statement of grounds was filed.

Reasons

6. Article 60 EUTMR, requires that a written statement of grounds of appeal be filed within four months of the date of notification of a contested decision. If an appeal does not comply with this requirement, the Boards of Appeal must reject it as inadmissible, pursuant to Rule 49(1) CTMIR.
7. In the present case, the time-limit to file a statement of grounds expired on 30 September 2016. Since no written statement setting out the grounds of appeal was received by the Office within the said time-limit, the appeal is to be rejected as inadmissible in accordance with the above mentioned provisions of the Regulation.
8. Consequently, the contested decision becomes final and the appeal is rejected as inadmissible.

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Order

On those grounds,

THE BOARD

hereby:

1. Rejects the appeal as inadmissible;
2. Declares the contested decision final.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Signed   G. Humphreys

 

 

Registrar:   Signed   H. Dijkema