In the current issue of the magazine GRUR-Prax (issue 3/2024), two lawyers from our IP team have published reviews of current judgments in the areas of personality and media law and trademark law. Twice a month, GRUR-Prax provides a practice-oriented overview of important decisions and innovations in intellectual property law as well as copyright and media law.
Micaela Schork, LL.M. examines a decision by the Berlin Court of Appeal on the “injunctive relief of a legal entity under public law in the event of a risk of functional impairment” in favor of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). In this case, the Federal Republic of Germany, represented by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), took action against a tweet which it considered to have unlawfully disparaged its public reputation. As this was a tweet by former “Bild” boss Julian Reichelt, there was great media interest in the decision. Following a rejection of the claim by the Berlin Regional Court and an assessment of the tweet as a permissible expression of opinion, the Court of Appeal in the next instance classified the statement in dispute as an untrue factual allegation, which was also likely to jeopardize the public’s trust in the work of the authority concerned and its ability to function.
Patrick Jörg Kaatz’s article “No examination of national law when entering a license in the EUIPO register” is devoted to a judgment on the question of whether a trademark acquirer must tolerate a license granted by the previous trademark owner being entered in the European trademark register. The EGC answered this question in the negative, stating that the formalized requirements of register law were the only relevant factor. The national legal situation was irrelevant.
This has practical implications:
- Licensees must have their licenses entered in the trademark register at an early stage.
- Despite this decision, trademark purchasers should not recklessly withhold their consent to registration, otherwise they may be liable for damages.
- Trademark sellers must keep an eye on the licenses when selling the trademark in order to avoid ultimately becoming liable for damages to the licensee and/or the purchaser.
Both reviews of the judgment can be found in GRUR-Prax 3/2024 or online here: https://rsw.beck.de/zeitschriften/grur/grur-prax (subject to a charge).
