Official Journal of the European Union

EN

C series

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C/2025/4621

(Case T-423/25)

(C/2025/4621)

Language in which the application was lodged: English

Parties

Applicant: Aurora Srl (Padua, Italy) (represented by: C. Dekoninck, L. Coucke and P. Springorum, lawyers)

Defendant: Community Plant Variety Office

Other party to the proceedings before the Board of Appeal: SESVanderhave NV (Tienen, Belgium)

Details of the proceedings before CPVO

Community Plant Variety Right at Issue: M 02205 (EU 15118)

Procedure before CPVO: Nullity proceedings

Contested decision: Decision of the Board of Appeal of 16 April 2025 in Case A 030/2022

Form of order sought

The applicant claims that the Court should:

—declare the application admissible and well-founded;

—annul the contested decision;

—alter the contested decision by declaring Community plant variety right No EU 15118 null and void; and

—order CPVO to pay the costs incurred by the Applicant.

Pleas in law

—The Board of Appeal erred in law when deciding that, following the judgments of the General Court of 23 November 2017 and 13 March 2020, the burden of proof still lay with the Applicant;

—The Board of Appeal breached an essential procedural requirement by not responding to the Applicant’s arguments based on legal certainty or, at the very least, it breached the principles of legal certainty and protection of legitimate expectations when it implicitly considered that the CPVO was entitled to change retroactively the characteristics used to justify the grant of a Community plant variety right; and

—The Board of Appeal erred in law and in fact when deciding that the plant variety right at stake was distinct from the reference variety KW 043.

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ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/C/2025/4621/oj

ISSN 1977-091X (electronic edition)

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