1.

Should Article 61 of Regulation (EU) 2017/1001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 June 2017 (1) and Article 9 of Directive (EU) 2015/2436 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 December 2015 to approximate the laws of the Member States relating to trade marks (2) be interpreted as meaning that the proprietor of an earlier registration who sets a specific time limit in the warning letter for bringing an action for a declaration of invalidity that clearly and unambiguously coincides with the general time limit of five years for bringing an action for a declaration of invalidity, is subject to the principle of estoppel, since that party has given the proprietor of the later trade mark the expectation that that proprietor will not be sued on the basis of possible invalidity after the specified date? In that regard, should a plea of bad faith in the application for registration asserted in subsequent legal proceedings for the purpose of avoiding the existence of a limitation period be regarded as conduct contrary to the principle of good faith if, at the time when the burofax was sent, the party already had all the elements necessary to consider that the registration had been applied for in bad faith?

2.

If the answer to the first question is in the affirmative, should Article 61 of Regulation (EU) 2017/1001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 June 2017 and Article 9 of Directive (EU) 2015/2436 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 December 2015 to approximate the laws of the Member States relating to trade marks be interpreted as meaning that the conduct of the applicant in actively opposing the registration of EU trade marks that substantially overlap with the contested national trade marks, where registration was ultimately refused as a result of that opposition, constitutes an effort within a reasonable period to remedy that situation?