DESIGN LAW – PROCEDURAL LAW
Inadmissibility of action: failure to submit signed original of the application not capable of being regu-larised
• The failure to submit the signed original of the application is not one of the defects capable of being regularised under Article 44(6) of the Rules of Pro-cedure of the General Court. Thus, an application which is not signed by a lawyer is affected by a defect which is such as to entail the inadmissibility of the action upon the expiry of the procedural time-limits, and cannot be put in order
• It should be noted that the strict application of those procedural rules serves the requirements of legal certainty and the need to avoid any discrimina-tion or arbitrary treatment in the administration of justice.
No excusable error: responsibility rests with the lawyer
• As the Advocate General emphasised at point 89 of her Opinion, the responsibility for preparing, monitoring and checking procedural documents to be lodged at the Registry rests with the lawyer of the party concerned. Accordingly, the fact that the con-fusion between the original and the copies of the application is attributable to the intervention of a third party, a company instructed by the appellant to make copies, and the other circumstances put forward by the appellant cannot be considered ex-ceptional circumstances or abnormal events uncon-nected to the appellant entitling it to rely on excusa-ble error or unforeseeable circumstances.
IPPT20110922, CJEU, Bell & Ross v OHIM
