©-LAW

AG Saugmandsgaard Øe Is Article 17 of   Directive 2019/790   (DSMD) compatible with the   EU Charter of Fundamental Rights , notably its Article 11 and the principle of freedom of expression and information? According to Poland, the answer should be in the negative.  Indeed, shortly after the adoption of the Directive in 2019, this country lodged a complaint ( C-401/19 ) before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), seeking the partial or - as a subsidiary claim - complete annulment of the provision. This morning, Advocate General (AG) Saugmandsgaard Øe released his  Opinion , advising the Court to rule that Article 17 is compatible with the Charter and should not be annulled. All this is true insofar as the monitoring obligations of online content sharing service providers (OCSSPs) are circumscribed by sufficient safeguards, which the provision itself contains, so to minimize the impact of the resulting filtering activities on users’ freedom of expr...

  Can the shape of a lipstick case function as an indicator of commercial origin? The answer is yes when such case is the iconic and immediately recognizable (at least to lipstick lovers!) one of   Rouge G de Guerlain : Today, also the General Court did agree in its judgment in  T-488/20  Guerlain   [currently only available in French] . The judgment (correctly) reverses the earlier, contrary decision of the EUIPO First Board of Appeal ( 2292/2019-1 ). Background In 2018, Guerlain applied to register the 3D sign represented above (left-hand side) for “lipsticks” in Class 3. The EUIPO examiner rejected the application considering that the sign would lack distinctive character, in accordance with Article 7(1)(b)  EUTMR . The subsidiary claim of the applicant under Article 7(3) EUTMR (acquired distinctiveness) could be examined once the decision became final. Guerlain unsuccessfully appealed.  The EUIPO Board considered that the shape applied for wou...