Opinion A-G ECJ concerning exclusive jurisdiction of article 22(4) Brussel I
Trade Mark Law - Litigation - The A-G concludes that an action (seeking an order requiring the person formally registered as proprietor of a Benelux mark to make a declaration to...
moreA trade mark which refers to a good or service of high quality which is abundantly present cannot be indicated as geographical origin
Trade Mark Law - A trade mark such as LA MILLA DE ORO – which refers to a good or service with a high degree of value which is abundantly present in a single place – cannot constitute an...
moreNLO: Can a plant rule supplant a plant decision?
In 2015, the so-called Tomato-II and Broccoli-II cases (G 2/12 and G 2/13) reached decisions from the Enlarged Board of Appeal. These decisions held that ‘plant products such as fruits, seeds and parts of plants are patentable even if they are obtained through essentially biological...
moreEPO amends regulations on patentability of plants and animals
From the press release: "Munich, 29 June 2017 -- On a proposal of the European Patent Office its Administrative Council took a decision to amend the relevant Regulations in order to exclude from patentability plants and animals exclusively obtained by an essentially biological breeding process.
moreThe disparagement clause violates the First Amendment’s Free Speech Clause
Trade mark law - Free speech - The disparagement clause violates the First Amendment’s Free Speech Clause: the disparagement clause reaches any trademark that disparages any person, group, or institution, goes much further than necessary and is...
moreNew Regulation on the European Union trade mark from 1 October 2017
Regulation (EU) 2017/1001 of 14 June 2017 on the European Union trade mark (codification) has been published in the Official Journal of the European Union on 16 June 2017.
morePurely plant based products may in principle not be marketed under designations for milk products
Sales Descriptions - Purely plant based products may not be marketed under terms as ‘milk’ and other designations that are reserved exclusively for milk products by Regulation No 1308/2013: even if those terms are expanded upon by clarifying or descriptive terms indicating the plant origin of the...
moreCPVO president has the power to insert, on completion of the technical examination of a variety, a new characteristic in respect of that variety
Plant Variety Rights - General Court erred in law in the finding that Article 23(1) of the implementing regulation did not grant the President of the CPVO the power to insert, on completion of the technical examination of a variety, a new characteristic...
moreMaking available and managing platform such as “The Pirate Bay” constitutes communication to the public
Copyright - The making available and management of an online sharing platform such as The Pirate Bay that offers an index classifying protected works and a search engine that allows users of that platform to locate those works and to share them in...
moreGerman Constitutional Court stops implementation UPC
The German Constitutional Court has asked the German legislator to put the implementation of the UPC on hold. The reason of this request, according to the German media, is a constitutional complaint by an unnamed private person.
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moreThe use of an individual EU trade mark as a label of quality is not a genuine use
Trade Mark Law - The use of an individual EU trade mark as a label of quality is not a genuine use. An individual trade mark cannot be declared invalid, on the basis of Article 52(1)(a) and Article 7(1)(g), because the proprietor of the mark...
moreRequest for preliminary ruling concerning the sampling of phonograms
A request for preliminary ruling in the case of the sampling of Kraftwerk’s Metall auf Metall.
moreRelaunch IP-PorTal: platform for EU IP Law
IP-Portal publishes EU intellectual property materials for IP professionals and students of European IP law. IP-Portal is a publication of B9 Publishing, the publisher of the Dutch IP-website www.boek9.nl, live since 2004.
moreOpinion Advocate General Wahl on class headings and trade mark use in an abbreviated form
Trade Mark Law. Opinion of CJEU Advocate General Wahl after EUIPO appealed against a judgment in which the General Court held that the Court’s statement in IP Translator does not affect the extent of protection afforded...
moreExplanation of the concept ‘establishment’ (art. 97(1) Regulation No 207/2009) at a legally distinct second-tier subsidiary
Trade Mark Law - Private International Law - A legally distinct second-tier subsidiary, with its seat in a Member State, of a...
moreGeneral Court erred in law with regard to homogeneity of goods and services with respect to the reasoning of absolute grounds of refusal
Trade Mark Law - The General Court erred in law by stating that the goods and services covered by the application for registration of the sign ‘Deluxe’ displayed such differences as regards their nature, their characteristics, their intended use...
moreOrnamental and fanciful aspects do not preclude the ground for refusal under article 7(1)(e)(ii) of EU Trade Mark Regulation
Trade Mark Law - Ornamental and fanciful aspects do not preclude the ground for refusal under article 7(1)(e)(ii) of EU Trade Mark Regulation (exclusively the shape of goods that is necessary to obtain a technical result), in so far as those...
moreCase law about distinctiveness 3d-marks applies to marks consisting of twodimensional representations of products
Trade Mark Law - Case law in respect to distinctiveness of three dimensional trade marks consisting of the appearance of the product itself also applies in respect of figurative marks consisting of the two-dimensional representation of the...
moreOpinion A-G Szpunar on parallel actions based on EU and national trade marks
C-231/16, Merck v Merck, Opinion of A-G M. Szpunar. Prejudicial questions Landesgericht Hamburg.
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Sale of multimediaplayer which offers access to unauthorised content through pre-installed add-ons is a communication to the public
Copyright - The sale of a multimedia player on which add-ons are installed that link to websites on which protected works are made available to internet users without the consent of the copyright holders, constitutes 'communication to the public'....
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