10 July 2009 (*1)

(Appeal – ‘Decision’ of the Court of First Instance contained in a letter from its Registrar – Refusal to allow the appellant to be represented at the hearing by a ‘Trade Mark and Design Litigator’ – Decision against which an appeal may be lodged – Appeal clearly inadmissible)

In Case C‑59/09 P,

APPEAL under Article 56 of the Statute of the Court of Justice, brought on 9 December 2008,

Hasbro Inc., established in Pawtucket, Rhode Island (United States), represented by M. Edenborough, Barrister,

appellant,

the other parties to the proceedings being:

Enercon GmbH, established in Aurich (Germany),

applicant at first instance,

Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs) (OHIM),

defendant at first instance,

THE COURT (Fifth Chamber),

composed of M. Ilešič, President of the Chamber, A. Tizzano and J.‑J. Kasel (Rapporteur), Judges,

Advocate General: E. Sharpston,

Registrar: R. Grass,

after hearing the Advocate General,

makes the following

1By its appeal, Hasbro Inc. (‘Hasbro’) seeks annulment of the ‘decision’ of the Court of First Instance of the European Communities, contained in a letter of 22 September 2008 from its Registrar, by which it rejected Hasbro’s request to be represented at the hearing by a ‘Trade Mark and Design Litigator’.

2By its statement in intervention of 6 June 2008, Hasbro, represented by Mr Edenborough, Barrister, submitted its observations in Case T‑472/07 Enercon v OHIM, seeking the annulment of the decision of 25 October 2007 of the Fourth Board of Appeal of the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs) (OHIM) relating to Opposition Proceedings No B 763 666.

3On the same day and by separate document, Hasbro, still represented by Mr Edenborough, Barrister, requested that the Court of First Instance allow it to be represented at the hearing solely by Mr P. Harris, Trade Mark and Design Litigator.

4By letter of 22 September 2008, the Registrar of the Court of First Instance stated that Hasbro’s request could not be granted on the ground that a Trade Mark and Design Litigator is not a ‘lawyer’ within the meaning of Article 19 of the Statute of the Court of Justice.

The appeal

5Under Article 119 of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice, where an appeal is, in whole or in part, clearly inadmissible or clearly unfounded, the Court may at any time, acting on a report from the Judge-Rapporteur and after hearing the Advocate General, by reasoned order dismiss the appeal in whole or in part, without initiating the oral procedure or, depending on the circumstances, without notifying the respondent of the action.

6In the present case, the Court considers that it has sufficient information from the documents in the file and decides, pursuant to that article, to give its decision by way of reasoned order.

7Under Article 56 of the Statute of the Court of Justice, an appeal may be brought before the Court of Justice against final decisions of the Court of First Instance and decisions of that Court disposing of the substantive issues in part only or disposing of a procedural issue concerning a plea of lack of competence or inadmissibility.

8It is, however, clear that the letter of 22 September 2008 from the Registrar, against which the present appeal has been brought, does not fall within any of the categories of decisions which may be the subject of an ‘appeal’ within the terms of Article 56 of the Statute of the Court of Justice.

9It follows that the appeal brought by Hasbro must be dismissed as being clearly inadmissible.

Costs

10As the present order has been adopted before the notice of appeal was served on OHIM and the party Enercon GmbH and before they could have incurred costs, it suffices to hold that the appellant must bear its own costs, in accordance with Article 69 of the Rules of Procedure, which applies to appeal proceedings by virtue of Article 118 thereof.

On those grounds, the Court (Fifth Chamber) hereby orders:

[Signatures]

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Language of the case: English.