cc licenses on trademark?

Kevin Shrieve kevin at lumiere.net
Thu Mar 3 16:31:32 EST 2005


Thanks, Peter.

Peter Brink wrote:

> Kevin Shrieve skrev:
>
>> Peter,
>>
>> Would you be so kind as to give a brief summary of what you think are 
>> the most interesting implications of these cases?
>>
>
> The reason I mentioned the Trademark directive in the first place was 
> to point out that if one is contemplating a CC style trademark license 
> one cannot offer less rights than is already offered by the law. The 
> Trademark directive is implemented in all countries in the EU, all 
> Europeans are allowed to use marks as described in article 6 of the 
> directive. A CC trademark license thus needs to match or beat the EU 
> trademark directive in terms of the rights offered to the user for it 
> to be of any use for us in the EU. Designing a license which is only 
> useful in an US context seems to me to be a waste of both time and 
> resources.
>
> In the BMW case the ECJ sheds light on how to understand the rules in 
> article 6.c. The court ruled that a company who imported and sold BMW 
> cars was allowed to use BWS's logo in its marketing material and also 
> to call it self a "BMW specialist". Neither of these uses of BMW's 
> mark were an infringment. Both were necessary to indicate to consumers 
> that the company sold BMW cars and that they had specialist skills in 
> maintaining and repairing such cars. The case thus gives an example of 
> "honest practices" when a company indicates the intended purpose of a 
> product or service.
>
> The court also discusses how to balance the interests of the trademark 
> owner, competing companies and the consumers interests of having many 
> different products to choose from. The Gillette case will shed even 
> more light on how this balance should be struck.
>
> The BMW case should btw be covered in any decent textbook on European 
> Trademark law, such as "Intellectual Property — Patents, Copyrights, 
> Trademarks and Allied Rights" by Cornish and Llewelyn.
>
> /Peter
>
>
>
>
>
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