Geert Lokhorst, IViR alumnus, heeft de BMM Student Award 2019 gewonnen met zijn scriptie “The Good, the Bad and the Priority: EU trade marks, legal certainty and good faith in conflicts with senior users of a distinguishing sign“. De scriptie is begeleid door Stef van Gompel.

Van harte gefeliciteerd Geert, een geweldige prestatie!

Uit het persbericht:
De BMM redactie was vooral onder de indruk vanwege de heldere pen van de auteur ondanks het (niet eenvoudige) onderwerp en het uitgebreide onderzoek naar andere rechtsgebieden. Bovendien waardeert de BMM dat de auteur praktisch meedenkt met de rechthebbende en het geheel overzichtelijk en toegankelijk houdt.
Het resultaat is een mooie vogelvlucht langs de meest voorkomende issues bij samenloop en conflicten tussen EU-merken en andere rechten die voor menig advocaat, gemachtigde en merkhouder tot hoofdpijn leiden.

Samenvatting van de scriptie:
The globalisation of commerce has caused brands to build up international significance. This is furthered by the internet, enabling a single branding strategy to apply world-wide. The European Union Trade Mark Regulation supports this strategy, providing an EU trade mark that should enable the free movement of goods throughout the Union without fear of conflicting national rights. But does it? The EU trade mark may conflict with prior established use of a sign in a member state, causing legal uncertainty for its proprietors. This thesis focuses on such conflicts of rights and the uncertainties it causes. It poses the question whether legal uncertainty in conflicts between EU trade mark proprietors and prior users of a sign used in the course of trade may be solved by reference to standards of due care or a ‘know or should know’-rule within the framework of the Regulation. It finds that, while a standard of due care may solve some conflicts, the current design of the Regulation will still require undertakings to take caution when registering and using their EU trade mark throughout the Union. Standards of due care do not provide an all-encompassing solution. Fear of conflict remains, caused by an absence of uniformity of laws on unregistered trade marks and the prevalence of merely local rights against EU trade marks. Reliance on concepts of coexistence may provide some solutions, but the exact application of coexistence remains understudied by the European Court of Justice.

12 december 2019