CJEU – Page 2 – IP Law Watch

A figurative mark? A position mark? Or just a trade mark?

Jun 20 2019

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) recently confirmed that when assessing the actual use of a mark and the scope of protection afforded by a trade mark, the defining factor is the way in which it is perceived, and it is irrelevant that it is classified as a figurative or a position mark. In the CJEU’s decision in ECLI:EU:C:2019:471, the CJEU rejected German shoemaker Deichmann’s appeal to have Spanish competitor Munich SL’s trade mark revoked. The case revolves around the registered mark below, depicting a solid line cross on the side of a dotted outline of a shoe.

CJEU provides some clarity on when a design is ‘solely dictated by its technical function’

Apr 17 2018

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) recently confirmed that the “no-aesthetic-consideration” test is the preferable approach when deciding whether a design is “solely dictated by its technical function”. As a result, if aesthetic considerations are completely irrelevant the design should not be registered. However, this does not mean that the legislation requires a design to have an aesthetical merit in order to be registered as a Community Design.

Last month, the CJEU published their long-waited decision on the request for a preliminary ruling raised by the Oberlandegericht Düsseldorf (the “German Court”) back in 2016.

The CJEU has provided some clarity on the interpretation of Article 8(1) of the Community Design Regulation (CDR) and how to determine if a product’s features are “solely dictated by its technical function”. The CJEU took the chance to stress, once again, that the determination “must be interpreted in a uniform manner in all Member States”, which strongly reiterates the EU’s objective for cohesive legal application.

When recording also means communication to the public – interaction between copyright and cloud-based video recording services

Dec 07 2017

On 29 November 2017, the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) released its judgment in response to a reference from an Italian court relating to cloud recording and computing services provided by VCAST Limited (VCAST). The services enabled VCAST’s customers to select live broadcasts of television programmes that VCAST then remotely, through its own systems, recorded and made available in a cloud data storage space. The Italian court asked whether VCAST could provide this service without the permission from the owner of the copyright over the programme, with a specific query as to the application of the private copying exception provided in Article 5(2)(b) of the Information Society Directive (2001/29/EC) (InfoSoc Directive).

European Court Considers Whether Hyperlinking to Unauthorised Content on Third-party Websites Infringes Copyright

Apr 21 2016

By Alessandra Feller and Alessia Castelli

Following the provision of a recent Advocate General opinion, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) is expected to give further guidance on hyperlinking soon.

A dispute arose in the Netherlands between Sanoma Media Netherlands BV (and others) and GS Media in relation to the posting of website hyperlinks to third party sites which contained photographs the communication of which was not authorised by Sanoma and the other right holders.

Specifically, the Dutch Supreme Court has referred certain questions to the CJEU, asking whether

hyperlinks to a freely accessible third party website which displays material without the consent of the copyright owner should be considered a “communication to the public” within the meaning of Art 3(1) of the Directive no. 2001/29 (“InfoSoc Directive”).
In such circumstances, whether the following factors are relevant:
- the awareness of the hyperlinker of the failure of authorisation from the copyright owner, and/or
- the facilitation role played by the hyperlink on the accessibility of the material.Such conclusions were based on the grounds that the photographs were “freely accessible” to the general internet public on third party websites.

The CJEU decision on this case is much awaited, and it will be complementing the argument introduced by the Svensson case on hyperlinking. The decision in Svensson left some ambiguity as to whether it made a difference that works had been published on a site linked to without the copyright owner’s consent.

On April 7, 2016, Advocate General Wathelet released an opinion that hyperlinking to unauthorised content does not constitute an act of communication to the public under Article 3(1) of the InfoSoc Directive, because the intervention of the hyper linker is not essential to the making available of the copyright works to users. He also held that it is irrelevant whether the hyperlinker is aware that the linked content is unauthorised. In the AG’s view, the only criterion that mattered is whether the linked website is freely accessible or whether the hyperlink is used to circumvent a restriction put in place in order to limit access to a protected work. Only in the latter case would a hyperlink constitute a communication to the public.

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