Judgment_paragraph 137 · CEDC International sp. z o.o. v European Union Intellectual Property Office (T-796/16)

137It follows directly from the wording of Article 15(2)(a) of Regulation No 40/94 that the use of the trade mark in a form which is different from the form in which it was registered is regarded as use for the purposes of Article 15(1), to the extent that the distinctive character of the trade mark in the form in which it was registered is not changed (see, to that effect, judgments of 18 July 2013, Specsavers International Healthcare and Others, C‑252/12, EU:C:2013:497, paragraph 21; of 28 February 2017, Labeyrie v EUIPO – Delpeyrat (Representation of a sowing of light coloured fish on a dark background), T‑767/15, not published, EU:T:2017:122, paragraph 18; and of 28 June 2017, Tayto Group v EUIPO – MIP Metro (real), T‑287/15, not published, EU:T:2017:443, paragraph 22). The rule whereby the use of a mark in a form differing in elements which do not alter the distinctive character of that mark in the form in which it was registered is also regarded as use of that mark may be referred to, for the sake of brevity, as the ‘law of permissible variations’ (see, to that effect, judgment of 19 June 2019, Representation of three parallel stripes, T‑307/17, EU:T:2019:427, paragraph 48).…