Commission's Action Plan to combat counterfeiting and piracy: right-holders, help yourself, and the Commission will help you!

The European Commission's Directorate General Taxation and CustomsUnion (DG TAXUD), in charge of the monitoring of border measuresunder Regulation 1383/2003, invited right-holders and otherinterested parties to an informal meeting in Brussels on 24February 2006.     

The EU offensive against IP offences: should right-holders be offended?

Preliminary comments by interested parties on the draft EuropeanDirective on criminal measures aimed at ensuring the enforcementof intellectual property rights and the corresponding FrameworkDecision were made at a public hearing in the European Parliamenton 22 November 2005. At this hearing it became apparent thatconsensus on the proposed measures will be hard to reach, asright-holders and their lobby groups seem surprisingly reticentwith regard to the proposed harmonization. This article summarizesthe draft proposal and comments on some of the most relevantobservations made at the hearing.     

Trade mark use in transit: EU-phony or cacophony?

Legal context The present article discusses the opinion of Advocate-GeneralJacobs in Case C-405/05 Class International BV v Unilever NVand others, according to which trade mark owners cannot opposethe entry into the European Union of grey market non-Communitygoods placed in external transit, on the grounds of Article5(1) of the Trade Mark Directive, or any equivalent provision,as such entry does not constitute trade mark use. Key points We examine the consistency of this approach withprior case law of the European Court of Justice, namely in theCommission v France, Rioglass, The Polo/Lauren and Rolex casesand draw a parallelism with Council Regulation (EC) 1383/2003. Practical significance We conclude that trade mark owners shouldbe allowed to prohibit the placing in transit of goods whichwould infringe an intellectual property right under the lawof the transit country, unless the owner or consignor of thelitigious goods can undeniably prove that the goods are notdestined for the internal market. Stop press. At the end of the article the authors provide abrief analysis of the European Court of Justice's decision of18th October 2005 in this case.