2025 CJEU

IPPT20251218, CJEU, SACD
EU law does not preclude a national admissibility requirement that all joint holders of the copyright in a work of joint authorship be called on to participate in the proceedings, provided that that condition does not render the procedure concerned unnecessarily complicated or costly. Such an admissibility requirement falls, in principle, within the procedural autonomy of the Member States, since the provisions of EU law do not determine the detailed rules for pursuing remedies where copyright is held jointly. The national court must guarantee respect for the right to an effective remedy enshrined in Article 47 of the Charter and must, if need be, disapply the national provisions concerned.

IPPT20251218, CJEU, Deity Shoes v Mundorama
No minimum degree of creation required for protection of Community designs. Regulation No 6/2002 lays down no additional conditions other than novelty and individual character. Appearance is the decisive factor for a design. Those conditions (novelty and individual character) entail only a comparison between the existing design corpus, on the one hand, and the design for which protection as a Community design is requested, on the other hand. The protection of a design differs in this respect from that of ‘works’ within the meaning of Directive 2001/29. The fact that Article 14(1) provides that the right to a Community design belongs to the designer or his or her successor in title likewise does not establish an additional condition. Predetermined visual characteristics in suppliers’ catalogues and ad hoc modifications using components offered by the supplier do not, in themselves, preclude recognition of individual character. Fashion trends do not restrict the designer’s freedom in such a way as to lower the threshold for protection. Features resulting from fashion trends are not likely to be of lesser importance in the overall impression they produce on the informed user.  

IPPT20251218, CJEU, PMJC v Jean-Charles de Castelbajac
A trade mark consisting of a fashion designer’s name may be revoked due to misleading use. Where it is used by the proprietor of the trade mark, or with his or her consent, in such a way as to lead the average consumer who is reasonably well informed and reasonably observant and circumspect to believe, mistakenly, that the designer was involved in the design of the goods bearing that trade mark. That assessment must be carried out having regard to all the circumstances relevant to the particular case.  Scope of the provisions on revocation for misleading use: The characteristics of goods or services as to which the public may be misled, referred to in Directive 2008/95 and Directive (EU) 2015/2436, are not exhaustively listed. The creative origin of a product may constitute as a characteristic. Lastly, revocation on the ground of misleading use requires the existence of actual deceit or a sufficiently serious risk that the consumer will be deceived. 

IPPT20250911, CJEU, Salaparuta 

EU ground for refusal ‘liable to mislead the consumer due to well-known earlier trade mark’ not applicable to wines automatically protected before 1 August 2009: For nationally recognized wine names that enjoyed the automatic extension of the protection under Article 54 of Regulation No 1493/1999, only the regime set out in that Regulation applies.The notification and publication of such wine names in the Register of 2009 must be regarded as not the result of a new registration, but the extension of the wine name protected at national level, guaranteed by the EU legislator for the sake of legal certainty. The subsequent EU law provisions about grounds of refusal regarding misleading due to a well-known earlier trade mark apply exclusively to applications for protection subject to the new regime. A conflict between a protected wine name and earlier well-known marks registered for wines, containing words identical to that name, must be resolved by applying Section F(2) of Annex VII to Regulation No 1493/1999, as the EU legislature had intended that such a name prevail over those trade marks, while providing for a regime under which they may coexist. Provisions of international law, such as TRIPS, Paris Convention and Madrid Agreement, must be regarded as irrelevant in that regard, as its provisions do not have direct effect.

IPPT20250710, CJEU, UPFR v DADA Music
EU law does not require minimum flat-rate remuneration for phonogram producers. It does not follow from Article 8(2) of Directive 2006/115 or from the second subparagraph of Article 16(2) of Directive 2014/26 that Member States must guarantee minimum flat-rate remuneration to rightholders. Those provisions are intended to ensure that rightholders receive remuneration that is connected to the economic value of the use, and the concepts of ‘equitable remuneration’ and ‘appropriate remuneration’ must be given a uniform interpretation. While Member States enjoy a broad discretion when laying down the criteria for determining such remuneration, they must do so in compliance with EU law and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. National courts must assess whether remuneration is equitable or appropriate. That assessment requires the national court to verify whether a proper balance is guaranteed between the interests of rightholders and those of users. For that purpose, the court must take into account, inter alia: The economic value of the use of the rights in trade, the nature and scope of the use of the work and other protected subject matter, as well as the economic value of the service provided by the collective management organisation. In disputes between individuals, national law cannot be disapplied on the basis of a directive alone. Since directives cannot of themselves impose obligations on individuals and lack horizontal direct effect, a national court may not, solely on the basis of a directive, disapply a provision of national law in a dispute between private parties, unless domestic law provides otherwise.

IPPT20250710, CJEU, Sanchez Romero Carvajal Jabugo v Embutidos Monells
Bad faith excludes limitation in consequence of acquiescence: Bad faith on the part of the applicant at the time of filing the application for registration constitutes an absolute ground for invalidity which, by its very nature, is not subject to any limitation period.The following circumstances cannot affect that conclusion: the fact that the proprietor of the earlier mark, in an extrajudicial letter of formal notice addressed to the proprietor of the later mark, indicated a time limit for bringing an invalidity action which coincided with the expiry of the period of five successive year; the fact that the proprietor of the earlier mark, at the time when that letter of formal notice was sent, already had all the information necessary to consider that the application for registration had been filed in bad faith.

IPPT20251204, CJEU, Mio v Asplund & USM v Konektra
There is no relationship of rule and exception between design protection and copyright protection, such that, when assessing the originality of subject matter of applied art, it is necessary to apply stricter requirements than are laid down for other types of subject matter. 

IPPT20250904,CJEU, Lego v Pozitív Energiaforrás
Scope of protection of a design for a component of a modular system (toy building set) to be assessed by reference to the overall impression produced by the design on an informed user who, without being a designer or a technical expert, knows the various designs which exist in the sector concerned, possesses a certain degree of knowledge with regard to the features which those designs normally include and, as a result of his or her interest in the products concerned, shows a relatively high level of attention when he or she uses them as components of the modular system of which they form part, and not on a user who, possessing technical knowledge similar to that which may be expected of a sectoral expert, examines the design concerned down to the smallest detail and whose overall impression is based primarily on technical considerations. No ‘’special reasons’’ for not making an order prohibiting further infringement in the case of a modular system. Where an infringement relates only to some of the pieces of a modular system, the number of which is small in relation to the total number of components of that system. 

IPPT20250801, CJEU, Lunapark Scandinavia v Hardeco Finland
Preclusion fully harmonised by the EU Trade Marks Directive 2015/2436: precludes the applicability of a general principle of national law under which the right of the proprietor of a registered trade mark to prohibit the use, by a third party, of a sign which is identical with, or similar to, that trade mark is precluded, in situations other than those provided for in that directive.

IPPT20250710, CJEU, Purefun v Doggy
The Trade Mark Directive does not seek to harmonise at EU Level the national laws relating to trade names, a category to which a company name may belong: in the absence of harmonisation, the protection of trade names is a matter for national law. The Trade Mark Directive and the free movement of goods do not preclude a national system which provides, that the exclusive right conferred by a company name allows its proprietor to prohibit a third party from using an identical or similar sign, as a trade name or as a domain name, for goods or services which are identical or similar to those falling within the scope of activities for which its company name is registered, and, do not preclude that the failure to use that company name may, under certain conditions, lead to the revocation of that exclusive right and that the proprietor is required to describe and limit the nature of the activities falling within its object with sufficient precision to enable third parties to be effectively informed of them.

IPPT20250430, CJEU, Novel Nutriology
Advertising with health claims relating to botanical substances in food supplements temporarily prohibited: Health claims describing of referring to psychological or behavioural functions may be used only if they are based on scientific evidence and are well understood by the average consumer. The use of health claims relating to botanical substances is not permitted as long as the Commission has not completed the examination of such claims. This interpretation is not called into question by the principle of freedom to conduct a business. 

IPPT20250306, CJEU, Orchestre national de Belgique
Infosoc Directive 2001/29 and Rental Directive 2006/115 must be interpreted as precluding national legislation which provides for the assignment, by means of a regulatory act, for the purpose of exploitation by the employer, of the related rights of performers engaged under an administrative law statute, without the prior consent of those performers: Performers engaged under an administrative law statute are covered by the concept of ‘performer’ referred to in the Directives. The rights guaranteed to performers are exclusive by nature, any use by a third party without such prior consent must be regarded as infringing the holder’s right. The InfoSoc Directive 2001/29 and the Rental Directive 2006/115 do not permit a general compulsory assignment of all the related rights of a category of performers.

IPPT20250225, CJEU, BSH Hausgeräte v Electrolux
Cross border jurisdiction of a Swedish court over a Swedish domiciled defendant regarding infringement of all national parts of a European patent validated in Germany, Greece, Spain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria, Sweden, the United Kingdom and Türkiye. Article 4 and article 24 Brussels I bis Regulation. Article 24(4) of the Brussels I bis Regulation must be interpreted as meaning that a court of the Member State of domicile of the defendant which is seised, pursuant to Article 4(1) of that regulation, of an action alleging infringement of a patent granted in another Member State, does still have jurisdiction to hear that action where, in the context of that action, that defendant challenges, as its defence, the validity of that patent, whereas the courts of that other Member State have exclusive jurisdiction to rule on that validity.