References to the Court of Justice of the European Union
We provide advice to Ministers, who decide whether the UK should submit observations and intervene in Court of Justice (CJ) cases concerning IP.
Documents
Details
From January 2022 the IPO is no longer going to publish information on CJEU cases on this site.
The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) used to publish information on relevant cases of interest from the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) concerning intellectual property matters. The IPO published the specific questions that the Court of Justice (CJ) - the upper tier of the CJEU - was being asked to answer and case details, such as the parties to the case and relevant legislation.
Cases at the Court of Justice of the European Union
EU Member States are invited to make observations on CJEU cases. After leaving the EU, the UK has broadly retained the right to intervene in cases brought to the CJEU, though the UK is now subject to new limitations which are set out in the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA). In most instances the UK can still make written observations on relevant CJEU cases for a four-year period after the end of the Transition Period which ended at the end of December 2020. For the full terms of the UK’s ability to intervene in CJEU cases please see the TCA website.
This does mean that the threshold for the UK’s intervention in future cases will be higher than before. To reflect this change, the IPO has decided that from January 2022 the IPO will no longer publish information on CJEU cases on the government website. This also means the IPO will stop providing the e-mail alert service to subscribers.
Monitoring future CJEU cases
The IPO will still monitor new CJEU cases and will continue to provide advice to Ministers, who will decide whether the UK should submit observations and intervene in CJEU cases, but as noted above, the bar for intervention must be read within the context of the UK’s new relationship with the EU.
The IPO is no longer going to publish information on CJEU cases on this site and will no longer provide the CJ e-mail alert service, which provided an e-mail notification to subscribers when a new case was uploaded to this site.
The CJEU case information currently held on this page will remain in place for a further 3 months for the benefit of users. After this period all CJEU case information will be removed from this page. You will still be able to access the same level of CJEU case information, but you will have to do this directly, using the official CJEU website. You can access CJEU caselaw information by using the link below, you will then need to click court reports in the menu on the left side of the page, and then choose either the Court of Justice or the General Court. You can also use the search function using the link below to search for a specific case using the case number or you can use the other search functions to find cases.
CJEU case information can be accessed directly from the CJEU website:
- for caselaw court reports
- To search a case by it case number
Details of pre 2012 cases are available from The National Archives.
If you wish to express your views on a specific CJEU case you can email the IPO.
Deadlines
We face tight time limits in which to consider and provide advice on CJ cases. The UK and EU Member States have two months after receiving notification from the CJ in which to make written observations. This timeframe includes the time to prepare the submission to the CJ, which takes a minimum of five weeks. In practice, this usually gives the IPO less than two weeks in which to consider the case and any comments before we provide advice to our Minister.
How to provide useful comments
If you wish to express your views on an CJEU case you can email the IPO at UKIPOECJCases@ipo.gov.uk. We understand how difficult it is to provide detailed comments in the time available. Should you wish to submit a comment all we need is a short email saying:
- whether you think the UK should intervene and general points about how you think the questions should be answered and why
You are welcome to follow this email up with more detailed comments which can be taken into consideration if we have chosen to submit observations or if we attend a hearing.
To help us identify the case in question please include clear information about the case.
Updates to this page
Last updated 31 January 2022 + show all updates
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From January 2022 the IPO is no longer going to publish information on CJEU cases on this site added.
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Case C-261/21 removed due to published in error.
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Case C-490/14 has been published.
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C-400/14 P: Basic AG Lebensmittelhandel v OHIM has been advertised.
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New CJ cases C-470/14 and C-471/14 advertised.
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First published.