Can Amazon be directly liable for trade mark infringement? A new CJEU referral
Is it a trade mark infringement to, e.g., advertise, offer, stock and ship goods carrying a sign identical or similar to a registered sign? The answer is not a difficult one to provide: Articles 10 TMD and 9 EUTMR clearly indicate that these activities amount to prima facie infringement. Things, however, get more complicated when the same question is asked with reference to an online marketplace, e.g., Amazon. Can such a platform be regarded as playing an active role and be directly liable for trade mark infringement if what is being promoted, sold, stocked and shipped through it is a counterfeit item? This, in a nutshell, is the key issue at the heart of the very interesting referral to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in Louboutin , C-148/21 (there is also another trade mark case concerning Louboutin, C-184/21 , but the relevant questions are not yet available). This referral from Belgium was made in the context of proceedings that the famous red sole tra