Latest blog articles
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Representing the prototype of multi-sided platforms, app stores are at the forefront of the debate on digital markets. Several regulatory proposals place on app stores neutrality obligations vis-à-vis third parties. Are EU and US competition laws utterly unfit to tackle platform-related behaviours...
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As Big Tech Platforms increasingly become unavoidable actors in digital markets, there seems to be a consensus in the EU, UK and USA that legislative action must be taken to tame their power. However, there are several notable differences in the way in which they suggest to design this regulatory...
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Recently, the General Court in the HELL coffee case has confirmed that a descriptive foreign language term (German word HELL) can be granted protection under EU trade mark law (Hell Energy v. EUIPO, T-323/20).
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What does the term ‘MOCCA’ evoke in your mind, a kind of coffee or a specific brand? This Kat randomly asked this question to her friends currently at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition Munich. Most of them regarded ‘MOCCA’ as a kind of coffee instead of a specific brand except...
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Geographical indications (hereinafter GIs) are signs used to safeguard the existence of a link between a product and its place of origin, focusing on quality and tradition.
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For more than 40 years now, the harmonisation and unification of the European patent law have been discussed. So far, the only European legal instrument regulating substantive patent matters is a European Patent Convention (EPC) signed in 1973. The EPC, however, is outside the EU’s legislative and...
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Recently there has been a strong wave of anti-China sentiments expressed in the media and within certain political circles, both in the United States and within the European Union. The Netherlands has been no exception to this.
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On 4 March 2021, Italy decided to block a shipment of the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine that was destined for Australia. This remarkable move, notably made in response to AstraZeneca’s delay in providing the agreed doses of vaccines by the set deadlines, is the first of its kind since the...
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Can a single colour alone be a trademark? The question is neither new nor unexplored. However, old wine in a new bottle is presented by the General Court in its decision rejecting an attempt to register a shade of colour for inhalers for asthma and related pharmaceutical preparations, reinstating...
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Only 10 out of the 24 official EU language translations correctly transpose Article 17 of the Directive (EU) 2019/790 on copyright and related rights in the Digital Single Market. These apparent errors mandate urgent action by the European Commission and the EU Member States.