Competition law - Case C-8/08. Preliminary ruling. College van Beroep voor het bedrijfsleven (Netherlands). A concerted practice pursues an anti‑competitive object for the purposes of Article 81(1) EC where it is capable of resulting in the prevention, restriction or distortion of competition: not necessary for there...

Marketing Law - General prohibition of combined offers is not permissible: The Directive must be interpreted as precluding national legislation which, with certain exceptions, and without taking account of the specific circumstances, imposes a general prohibition of combined offers made by a vendor to a consumer. Full...

Comptetition Law - As for the concept of serious impediments to the proper functioning of the common market, it may constitute one of the criteria for evaluating whether there is sufficient Community interest to necessitate the investigation of a complaint by the Commission. The effect on trade between Member States...

Trade Mark Law - Prohibiting sales to discount stores possible: It is conceivable that the sale of luxury goods by the licensee to third parties that are not part of the selective distribution network might affect the quality itself of those goods, so that a contractual provision prohibiting such sale must be...

Advertising Law  - Pharmaceutical Law - Dissemination by a third party of information about a medicinal product, including its therapeutic or prophylactic properties, may be regarded as advertising, even though the third party in question is acting on his own initiative and completely independently, of the manufacturer...

Publication - handover of journalistic materials proportionate given the nature and seriousness of the crimes: ramming wall with a shovel. The actions of the police and the public prosecutors were characterised by a regrettable lack of moderation. Even so the reasons advanced for the interference complained of were...

Competition Law - The acquisition of prototypes and the related management of intellectual property rights does not make that activity an economic one, since the acquisition did not involve the offer of goods or services on a given market. Eurocontrol granted licences at no cost, which indicated that the management of...

Trade Mark Law - The Board of Appeal referred, in particular, to advertisements showing images of Budvar beer bearing the mark BUDWEISER, to invoices sent to customers in Germany and Austria and to the fact that those advertisements and invoices related to the relevant period. Stated reasons for obvious similarities...

Publication - Privacy - Requirement to publish qualification to an article contained in an Internet archive does not constitute a disproportionate interference with the freedom of expression.

Database Rights - The fact that the physical and technical characteristics present in the contents of a database also appear in the contents of another database may also be interpreted as an indication of the existence of a transfer between the two databases and therefore, of an extraction.

Trade Mark Law - The fact that the third party at issue uses a sign which is identical with a registered mark in relation to goods which are not its own goods, in that it does not have title to them, is not relevant and can therefore not mean by itself that that use does not fall under the concept of ‘use’.

Neighbouring Rights - Private International Law - Conflict of Laws - Rights of phonogram producers: The holder of the rights, who is a national of a non-Member State, enjoys protection in a situation where the work or subject-matter at issue was, on 1 July 1995, protected as such in at least one Member State under that...

Pharmaceutical Law - A product cannot be regarded as a medicinal product where, it is incapable of appreciably restoring, correcting or modifying physiological functions. No medicinal product in case of doubt: The directive does not apply to a product in respect of which it has not been scientifically established that...

Trade Mark Law - Where the proprietor of a mark affixes that mark to items that it gives, free of charge, to purchasers of its goods, it does not make genuine use of that mark in respect of the class covering those items.

Publication - Privacy - The key issue in the present case is not the nature, harmless or otherwise, of the applicants' son's representation on the offending photographs, but the fact that the photographer kept them without the applicants' consent. The baby's image was thus retained in the hands of the photographer in...

Trade Mark Law - Lego trademark invalid: Essential characteristics of shape consisting exclusively of intended technical result, even if that result can be achieved by other shapes using the same or another technical solution. The essential characteristics of a shape must be determined objectively, on the basis of its...

Litigation - Lack of urgency interim measures: the application for interim measures must be dismissed on the ground of lack of urgency, without there being any need to examine whether the other conditions for ordering the suspension of operation sought, in particular the existence of a prima facie case, are satisfied