Good lectures during the autumn meeting of the Benelux Association for Trademark and Design Law on 18 November 2011. Maarten Haak chaired an impressive selection of national and international speakers who spoke about online and offline developments.
Generic Top Level Domains
In April 2012 we will know which generic Top Level Domains have been aplied for: internet extensions for a trademark, a company or a group, e.g. .canon or .vitamins. For a fee of US$ 185,000 one can become the registrar of one 's own domain for ten years. Several trademark owners are watching this introduction carefully: what if a third party suddenly uses your trademark? After April 2012 it is likely that there will be ample time to act, should this be necessary. Let's first see which domains will be applied for. Lots of trademark owners have already decided to refrain from taking part in this, but will closely follow the developments.
Customs
Everyone is waiting for the ECJ judgment in the Nokia matter, expected beginning of December 2011. This judgment will be on transit goods that have not been officialy brought in to the EU. Usually they are stocked in a sealed container and, in principal, do not enter the EU. In practice the container may travel through the EU (still sealed). But sometimes the goods disappear during the cross EU travel. As long as the destination of the goods is unknown, a trademark owner can not stop counterfeit goods. At this moment the trademark owner needs to establish at least a presumption that the goods are destined for an EU member state. In practice the destination is (nearly) always unknown. It needs to be seen whether trademark owners will be able to act when the Nokia judgment will have been published.
Design law (Registered Community Designs)
The ECJ recently rendered its judgment in the PepsiCo/Grupo Promer matter. This judgment provides the most recent (unfortunately rather short and slimly motivated) framework for design matters: about the informed user, the overall impression of the design and about infringements on a Community Design.
Trademark law: reputation
After l'Oréal/Bellure and Interflora it may be complex to render a clear and solid advice: infringement or not?Because of its vague trademark function doctrine the ECJ made trademark conflicts less predictable. In practice this means that lawyers tend to advise more conservatively.
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Good lectures during the autumn meeting of the Benelux Association for Trademark and Design Law on 18 November 2011. Maarten Haak chaired an impressive selection of national and international speakers who spoke about online and offline developments.
Generic Top Level Domains
In April 2012 we will know which generic Top Level Domains have been aplied for: internet extensions for a trademark, a company or a group, e.g. .canon or .vitamins. For a fee of US$ 185,000 one can become the registrar of one 's own domain for ten years. Several trademark owners are watching this introduction carefully: what if a third party suddenly uses your trademark? After April 2012 it is likely that there will be ample time to act, should this be necessary. Let's first see which domains will be applied for. Lots of trademark owners have already decided to refrain from taking part in this, but will closely follow the developments.
Customs
Everyone is waiting for the ECJ judgment in the Nokia matter, expected beginning of December 2011. This judgment will be on transit goods that have not been officialy brought in to the EU. Usually they are stocked in a sealed container and, in principal, do not enter the EU. In practice the container may travel through the EU (still sealed). But sometimes the goods disappear during the cross EU travel. As long as the destination of the goods is unknown, a trademark owner can not stop counterfeit goods. At this moment the trademark owner needs to establish at least a presumption that the goods are destined for an EU member state. In practice the destination is (nearly) always unknown. It needs to be seen whether trademark owners will be able to act when the Nokia judgment will have been published.
Design law (Registered Community Designs)
The ECJ recently rendered its judgment in the PepsiCo/Grupo Promer matter. This judgment provides the most recent (unfortunately rather short and slimly motivated) framework for design matters: about the informed user, the overall impression of the design and about infringements on a Community Design.
Trademark law: reputation
After l'Oréal/Bellure and Interflora it may be complex to render a clear and solid advice: infringement or not?Because of its vague trademark function doctrine the ECJ made trademark conflicts less predictable. In practice this means that lawyers tend to advise more conservatively.