Trade Marks and Free Trade

This book is the first study which examines the issue of the legality of parallel imports of trade-marked goods under the most important legal systems on an international level, namely under GATT/WTO law, EU law and the laws of the ten major trading partners of the European Union. Part I consists of a general approach to the phenomenon of parallel importation and of a presentation of the theories that have been suggested to solve the above-mentioned issue. The rule of exhaustion of rights, which can be found in three types (rule of national, regional and international exhaustion of rights), is proposed as the most effective instrument to deal with the issue in question. Part II examines the question of exhaustion of trade mark rights in light of the provisions of GATT/WTO Law. Part III is mainly intended to analyse the elements of the EU provisions on exhaustion of trade mark rights (Articles 7 of Directive 2008/95/EC and 13 of Regulation (EC) 207/2009) and some special issues relating to the application of those provisions. Part IV presents the regimes of exhaustion of trade mark rights recognized in the current ten most significant states trading partners of the European Union. The book is the first legal study which, in light of economic analysis, welcomes the approach adopted by GATT/WTO law and EU law to the question of the geographical scope of the exhaustion of trade mark rights rule. It includes all the case-law developed on an international level on the issue of the legality of parallel imports of trade-marked goods and all the scientific literature concerning the phenomenon of parallel imports in general and the legality of parallel imports of trade-marked goods. All the views expressed in the book are based on the most recent case-law of the European Court of Justice and the courts of the most important trading partners of the European Union.§