Conference: Community Trademarks and Designs – Significant Recent Developments

From the conference website: The seminar will focus on significant developments since 2005, when the last ERA seminar was held at the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (OHIM).

In the field of designs, the Geneva Act of the Hague Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Industrial Designs enabling the international registration of community designs and to which the European Union has just acceded will be presented and its consequences discussed. Concerning spare parts, progress on discussions relating to the proposal for a Directive amending Directive 98/71/EC on the legal protection of designs (COM(2004)582) will be analysed.

Concerning trademarks, the seminar will focus on conflicts of laws, in particular within the framework of the Internet. The implications of the Rome II proposal on the law applicable to non-contractual obligations will form an integral part of the discussions.

At a jurisprudential level, the most significant community case law on invalidity decisions concerning trademarks and designs will be presented.

The last part of the seminar will be dedicated to the mechanisms aiming to reinforce intellectual property rights. The conference will provide an overview of the transposition of the Enforcement Directive 2004/48/EC. The implications of the proposed directive on criminal measures aimed at ensuring the enforcement of intellectual property rights (COM(2005)276 final) will also be discussed. Experts from OHIM, academics and practitioners will be invited to give their point of view.

Target audience: Lawyers in private practice and in-house counsel, civil servants of national and European authorities responsible for trademarks and designs, judges, academics

This conference to be held in Alicante, 22-23 November 2007, is organised by ERA. The conference programme can be downloaded from the conference website.