Translation of "simple affaire de forme " (French → English) :

Simple cases of incompatibility can take several years to be finally determined by courts.

‘SME Loans’ means all lending to any small and medium-sized enterprise as defined by the European Commission Recommendation (1) in Ireland engaged in an economic activity, irrespective of legal form (e.g. corporation, partnership, sole-trader), which employs fewer than 250 persons and whose annual turnover does not exceed EUR 50 million or whose annual balance sheet does not exceed EUR 43 million.

The calculation of fines and periodic penalty payments as a fraction of the turnover of the organisation, bearing in mind the maximum ceiling established in accordance with Regulation (EC) No 391/2009, is a simple method to make the fines and periodic penalty payments dissuasive while remaining proportionate to both the gravity of the case and the economic capacity of the organisation concerned, in light of the diverse sizes of recognised organisations.

Thus this is not one of the customary shapes of the goods in the sector concerned or even a mere variant of those shapes, but a shape having a particular appearance which, having regard also to the aesthetic result of the whole, is such as to retain the attention of the public concerned and enable it to distinguish the goods covered by the trade mark application from those of another commercial origin (see, to that effect, Case T-128/01 DaimlerChrysler v OHIM (Grille) [2003] ECR II-701, paragraphs 46 and 48, and Shape of a bottle, paragraph 41).

The Board of Directors then had two documents that could be used as a basis: a business plan in the form of a table, showing revenue and expenditure spread over several years, and a strategic guidelines note.

In fact, there is no clear boundary between actively promoting mobility and removing obstacles to it, and stressing the former rather than the latter is more a matter of presentation than of substance.