Patent Law - Abuse of a Dominant Position: FRAND-patent holder does not abuse a dominant position to pursue infringement proceedings if he alerted the alleged infringer of the infringement, presented a specific, written offer for a licence on FRAND terms and the infringers continues to use the patent in question. Not...

Litigation -  Article 8(3)(e) of Directive must be interpreted as precluding a national provision, which allows, in an unlimited and unconditional manner, a banking institution to invoke banking secrecy in order to refuse to provide, information concerning the name and address of an account holder

Trade Mark Law - Economic operator who is importing without the consent of the proprietor and placing those goods under duty suspension arrangement must be classified as ‘using in the course of trade any sign which is identical with the trade mark in relation to goods. The proprietor of a trade mark may oppose...

Litigation - Private International Law -  Trade Mark Law - Not recognising a judgment contrary to EU law can not be justified on the grounds that it infringes public policy in a Member State, where the error of law relied on does not constitute a manifest breach of a rule of law regarded as essential in the EU legal...

Plant Variety - in order to be able to benefit from the derogation from the obligation to obtain the authorization of the holder of the plant variety right, the right holder is required to pay the equitable remuneration, no later than 30 June following the date of reseeding

Trade Mark Law - Likelihood of Confusion: in the assessment of the likelihood of confusion between marks with Arabic words, the definition and pronunciation should be considered if the relevant public has knowledge of written Arabic.

Freedom of Expression - Delfi’s liability for hateful comments posted by third parties no breach of Article 10 ECHR. The Court takes into account that the news portal was professionally managed, that Delfi did not take sufficient measures to remove the comments and that only a moderate sanction had been imposed on the...

Unfair Commercial Practices - It has to be assumed that consumers read the list of ingredients of the product before purchase.The presence of a list of ingredients does not in itself exclude the possibility that the labelling is misleading. Directive 2000/13 precludes misleading labelling, even though the actual...

Copyright - the exclusive rights of broadcasting organizations as referred to in Article 3(2)(d) of the Copyright Directive can be expanded to live sports events on the internet, if it does not affect the protection of copyright.

Plant Variety Rights - the General Court wrongly held that the principle of examination of the facts by the CPVO of its own motion also applies in proceedings before the Board of Appeal. No lead to the setting aside of the judgment: The General Court, non the less checked of the judgment under appeal whether the...

Trade Mark Law - purely descriptive element does not preclude from being acknowledged as dominant for the purposes of assessing the similarity of the signs at issue.

Copyright - a holder of an exclusive right to distribute is allowed to prohibit offers for sale or  targeted advertisement, even if it is not established that the advertisement gave rise to the purchase of that protected work by an EU buyer, in so far as that advertisement invited EU consumers to purchase it.

Patent law - SPC: if a basic patent includes a claim to a product comprising an active ingredient which constitutes the sole subject-matter of the invention,  that provision precludes the holder from obtaining a second supplementary protection certificate for that combination.

Trade Mark Law - Shape mark for beverages: that the EGC would have considered that trade mark that is made up only of components which are not devoid of distinctive character in relation to the goods concerned generally leads to the conclusion that that trade mark, taken as a whole, is devoid of distinctive character.

Patent Law - Unitary Patent Law: Administrative procedure preceding unitary patent protection is compatible with EU law: only establishes unitary effect on patents granted under the EPC. Regulation can be based on article 118(1) TFEU which is apt to prevent divergences in terms of patent protection and, accordingly...

Patent Law - The Regulation Unitary Patent Translation Arrangements has a legitimate aim: the translations arrangements make the access to the unitary patent and patent system as a whole easier, it is cheaper and ensures legal certainty. Since it is not required to translate a patent in an official language of a State...

Unfair Commercial Practices - Communication, by a professional to only one single consumer, of erroneous information is a ‘misleading commercial practice’. If there is a misleading practice it is not necessary to determine whether such a practice is also contrary to the requirements of professional diligence.

Patent Law - Allowable product claim directed to plants or plant material such as plant parts or fruits. Fact that only an essentially biological process or a product-by-process claim is available for the claimed subject matter (other than plant varieties) does not make the claims unallowable.

Notice of Oppossition: the holder of a patent or SPC is not required to give notification of his intention to oppose a proposed importation before invoking his rights under the first paragraph of the mechanism from the 2003 Act of Accession to the European Union.

Advertising law. Question for a preliminary ruling concerning nutrition and health claims in communications exclusively addressed to the professional sector. Article 1(2) of Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006 on nutrition and health claims made on foods.