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IPPT20001214, ECJ, Dior v Tuk and Assco v Layher

Jurisdiction: the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice to interpret Article 50 of TRIPs is thus not restricted solely to situa-tions covered by trade-mark law.

Direct effect: The provisions of TRIPs, are not such as to create rights upon which individuals may rely directly before the courts by virtue of Community law. Community law neither requires nor forbids that the legal order of a Member State should accord to individuals the right to rely directly on the rule laid down by Article 50(6) of TRIPs.

 

IPPT20001127, EBA-EPO, Designation fees
[G 0004/98] Effect of late payment designation fee: Without prejudice to Article 67(4) EPC, the designation of a Contracting State party to the EPC in a European patent application does not retroactively lose its legal effect and is not deemed never to have taken place if the relevant designation fee has not been paid within the applicable time limit.

 

IPPT20001109, ECJ, Ingmar

That Articles 17 and 18 of the Di-rective, which guarantee certain rights to commercial agents after termination of agency contracts, must be applied where the commercial agent carried on his ac-tivity in a Member State although the principal is estab-lished in a non-membercountry and a clause of the contract stipulates that the contract is to be gov-erned by the law of that country.

 

IPPT20001107, ECJ, Warsteiner Brauerei

Regulation No 2081/92 does not preclude the application of national legislation which prohibits the potentially misleading use of a geographical indication of source in the case of which there is no link between the characteristics of the product and its geographical provenance.

 

IPPT20000926, ECJ, Commission v French Republic

Customs seizure: Unauthorized detention of goods in transit to  another Member State where they may be lawfully marketed

 

IPPT20000908,TBA-EPO, Pension Benefit Systems
[T 1173/97] Having technical character is an implicit requirement for inventions. Method for doing business as such: If the method is technical or, in other words, has a technical character, it still may be a method for doing business, but not a method for doing business as such. Apparatus claim:  a computer system suitably programmed for use in a particular field, even if that is the field of business and economy, has the character of a concrete apparatus in the sense of a physical entity, man-made for a utilitarian purpose and is thus an invention within the meaning of Article 52(1) EPC.

 

IPPT20000712, EBA-EPO, University Patents
[G 3/98] Six month priority period – art 55(1) EPC: For the calculation of the six-month period the relevant date is the date of the actual filing of the European patent application; the date of priority is not to be taken account of in calculating this period.

 

IPPT20000622, ECJ, Adidas v Marca

Protection of a registered mark depends on there being a likelihood of confusion. The reputation of a mark does not give grounds for presuming the existence of a likelihood of confusion simply because of the existence of a likelihood of association in the strict sense.

 

IPPT20000516, ECJ, Belgium v Spain

Obligation to bottle Rioja-wine in production area constitutes a justified requirement

 

IPPT20000511, ECJ, Renault v Maxicar

The court of the State in which enforcement is sought cannot, without undermining the aim of the Convention, refuse recognition of a decision emanating from another Contracting State solely on the ground that it considers that national or Community law was misapplied in that decision.

 

IPPT20000406, ECJ, Polo-Lauren

The Regulation is expressly designed to apply to goods passing through Community territory from a non-member country destined for another non-member country. The external transit of non-Community goods is based on a legal fiction and had a direct effect on the internal market as there is a risk that counterfeit goods placed under the external transit procedure may be fraudulently brought on to the Community market.

 

IPPT20000113, ECJ, Estée Lauder

Community law does not preclude application of national legislation which prohibits the importation and marketing of a cosmetic product whose name incorporates the term 'lifting‘ in cases where the average consumer, reasonably well informed and reasonably observant and circumspect, is misled by that name, believing it to imply that the product possesses characteristics which it does not have.