14 | 05 | 2018

European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) Published Two New Studies

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The first study is titled “Case-Law Collection on the Balance between the Right of Information and Fundamental Rights in the European Union”. The EUIPO presented abstracts of the most important judicial practice of the Court of Justice of the European Union and competent judicial authorities of individual Member States of the European Union (Belgium, Germany, Greece, Spain, France, Austria, Poland, Portugal and Great Britain) related to the implementation of Article 8 of Directive 2004/48/EC on the enforcement of intellectual property rights. The related Article of Directive refers to the right of information, according to which the Member States provide in their national regulations laying down civil proceedings due to the infringement of intellectual property rights for a possibility that a court, in response to a justified and proportionate request of the claimant, may order that information on the origin and distribution networks of the goods or services, which infringe an intellectual property right, is to be provided by the infringer or other persons referred to in such provision of Directive. The right of information as referred to in such provision is a crucial legal possibility for rightholders in court proceedings, but in certain cases it can be conflicting with other rights, such as the protection of personal data. The Court of Justice of the European Union clarified in several of its decisions that the right of information should be interpreted at national level in such a way which allows for the full respect of the various applicable fundamental rights or other general principal of European Union law, such as the principle of proportionality.
The full report can be found at the following link.

The second study published is titled “Intellectual Property Litigation Insurance Landscape”. Small and medium-sized enterprises are often faced with the problem of insufficient financial means associated with often expensive litigations for the protection of intellectual property rights (high court costs, defence costs, expert report costs and the like). This is why this study researches on insurance possibilities or schemes for such cases, all within the framework of initiatives by the European Commission and the EU Observatory on Infringements of Intellectual Property Rights to provide a stronger support and assistance to small and medium-sized enterprises in the European Union with protecting and enforcing intellectual property rights. The study is based on an online survey carried out by the EU Observatory between May and June 2017.
The findings of this research are available at the following link.