The process of the UK leaving the EU.
With its long-awaited BASMATI judgment of 20 June 2024, the CJEU dismissed EUIPO’s appeal. According to the CJEU, the GC was right to uphold Indo’s action. The cease of effect of the earlier right invoked in an opposition after the BoA decision the annulment of which is requested before the GC does not mean that…
Recent posts have examined the UK courts’ approach to IP law post-Brexit, and have examined decisions handed down shortly before the coming into force of REULA on 1 January 2024 (the UK legislation marking the end of the supremacy of EU law in the UK). A further Court of Appeal decision from the end of…
At the end of last year, and shortly before the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023 (‘REULA’) came into force in the UK on 1 January 2024 (the legislation that officially brought an end to the principle of supremacy of EU law in the UK), the UK Court of Appeal departed from CJEU…
The start of 2024 marked a significant change in the UK legal landscape post-Brexit – the entry into force of the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023 (‘REULA’). This is the first of two blogs looking at REULA, and at the UK Courts’ approach to EU law following the UK’s departure from the…
We UK lawyers view with interest the developments in the “Brexit cases”, resulting in appeals to the CJEU in 3 cases, as discussed in various previous posts on this blog, the latest being the summary (here) of the AG opinion in the first case, BASMATI. The BASMATI case, and the related “Brexit cases” APE TEES…
On AG Szpunar’s Opinion in Case C-801/22 P BASMATI was the first of the appeals to the CJEU in the three „Brexit cases“. The other two are APE TEES (EUIPO v Nowhere, C-337/22 P) and SHOPPI (Shopify v EUIPO, C-751/22 P, see here and here)). The CJEU allowed all three appeals to proceed, and in…
Since the introduction on 2019 of the filtering mechanism according to which the CJEU has to decide whether or not allow an appeal to proceed in cases that have already been considered twice (such as by the EUIPO’s Board of Appeal and by the General Court), only few appeals have been considered treating issues that…
As expected, frankly wished for, and previously reported on this blog (see here), the EUIPO appealed the General Court’s Ape Tees decision (T-281/21) to the Court of Justice. The Court allowed this appeal to proceed on 16 November 2022, recognising that the appeal raises issues relating to the fundamental principles of “unity, consistency and development…
On 12 October 2022, the General Court decided on the invalidity action by Shopify, Inc. against the EUTM for a number of goods and services in classes 9, 35, and 38 (T‑222/21). The GC confirmed the EUIPO Board of Appeal’s finding that there was no likelihood of confusion, essentially because “shop” is descriptive and will…
The UK finally said bye-bye to the EU, but for how long will UK-based rights still matter in deciding EUTM-related controversies? This is the subject of two recent decisions by the General Court, i.e. the Basmati case, T‑342/20, decided on October 6, 2021, and the subsequent APE TEES case, T‑281/21, decided on March 16, 2022. In…
