Latest blog articles

  • Recently, politicians in different EU countries have suggested barring Russian tourists from visiting the EU (see reporting here and here). Such a ban would be in retaliation for the war waged by Russia against Ukraine. From a legal perspective, these suggestions raise the interesting question...

  • Breath in, breath out. Yes, the judgment of the (unlawfully composed) Polish Constitutional Tribunal is a serious challenge to the European Union’s legal system and to the principle of primacy of EU law. No, Poland has not activated the process of withdrawal from the EU under Article 50 TEU. Yes, EU...

  • Current US and EU secondary liability standards do not address all factors to trigger liability. This influences legislation and case law, setting an uncertain secondary liability outcome of IP infringement cases against Internet Intermediaries’. I suggest that tort law can tackle this problem.

  • On Friday 31 July, the Cypriot parliament voted against the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) with Canada. This latest development in the ratification process of CETA illustrates perfectly how facultative mixity continuously frustrates our collective interest in seeing the...

  • With the development of international trade, local products have started to spread all around the world and become popular worldwide. Geographical indications (GIs) are meant to protect the use of the name that indicates certain characteristics and the origin of products typical for a particular...

  • Unlike other sectors, improvements in Genetic technology raise issues of morality. The new human gene editing technology CRISPR/CAS9 has raised many such concerns. Can the current patent system deal with these concerns or should morality be dealt with by the inventors themselves?

  • The need to guarantee the free flow of information in a Big Data economy forces us to re-think Intellectual Property Rights and find an appropriate balance between competition, innovation, privacy and incentives.

  • With or without the UK, the EU will try to find a way to implement the UPC as it has invested considerable time and efforts knowing the benefits it will bring; however, the fate of the Agreement could be decided on judicial grounds instead of political ones.

  • SMECC stands for School, Minimum standard, Education, Child-friendly policy and care-Continuum. Imagine SMECC as a flat drawing of a house. The regulatory backstop is the minimum standard in family litigation for competent parenthood – far on the horizon, however, a necessary fundament of human...

  • Asylum seekers usually do not cross borders with a bag of documents. They have lost their personal belongings or have been confiscated by smugglers. Oral statements are therefore the only proof of origin. (Dutch only)