Book review: Extended protection of reputed trade marks from an international perspective.

Journal Article

1 electronic resource (pages 124-127)

Trade mark law as designed in the 19th century was classically governed by the principle of specialty, which limited the protection of a trade mark against its use for identical or similar goods or services resulting in a likelihood of confusion. This approach quickly turned out to be insufficient as it guaranteed no protection against an increasing number of cases of exploitation of some particularly famous trade marks in other areas of the market. Numerous court disputes and judgments prompted many national legislatures, at first in Europe and America but eventually on a global scale, to reinforce trade mark protection by introducing special provisions aimed at protecting reputed trade marks also beyond the specialty and notwithstanding the absence of a risk of confusion. While there are several monographs devoted to this topic under European Union (EU) and US law, the literature concerning other jurisdictions is less accessible to the international reader. It is therefore of a great value that the book under review proposes a comparative study and discusses in one work the issue of the enhanced protection of reputed trade marks from an international perspective.1 Indeed, notwithstanding an important harmonization of trade mark law on a global level, there exist many divergences between jurisdictions with respect to the topic discussed in the book, starting with the naming of the trade mark deserving extended protection, designated as ‘mark with a reputation’ under EU law while ‘famous mark’ under US law. The title itself shows how difficult is it to present a study on the enhanced protection from a global perspective. The title is probably more understandable for common law readers for whom the term ‘dilution’ refers to the whole regime of trade mark protection beyond the specialty. Under EU law, the sense of this term is narrower as it only designates one of the types of injury to a trade mark with a reputation, namely, detriment to the distinctive character of the mark (blurring). Based on the title, some European readers might moreover expect to find developments on the concept of free-riding (parasitism) condemned under tort liability (unfair competition) law.

Intellectual Property Law & Practice ; 20, 2, 2025, 1747-1540.

Oxford, UK : Oxford University Press, 2025.

English

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