©-LAW

In late February, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) issued its long-awaited  [the  Opinion  of Advocate General (AG) Bobek, on which see  here , had been released in July 2019]  judgment in  Constantin Film , C-240/18 P , aka the  Fack Ju Göhte  case concerning the interpretation of the morality absolute ground in EU trade mark (EUTM) law. The decision is both interesting and important for a number of reasons, including trade mark law, the role of freedom of expression, and also ... copyright.  Let’s see, first, what happened and, then, what the implications of the ruling are. Background Can the sign ‘Fack Ju Göhte’, which is also the name of a  successful German comedy  (followed by two sequels) be registered as an EUTM? Things have not proved easy for this application, initially filed in 2015 for a variety of goods and services in various classes under the  previous Regulation   [t...

A few days ago the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) issued yet another interesting judgment, which - albeit not directly related to IP - might be nonetheless relevant for the interpretation and application of public policy/morality exclusions, especially in the case of blasphemous and offensive subject matter. The decision is the one in   E.S. v Austria , Application No 38450/12 . Background The case related to the applicant's criminal conviction in Austria for  disparaging religious doctrines  (Articles 188 and 283 of the Austrian Criminal Code) , and her claim that this violated her freedom of expression under Article 10 of the  European Convention on Human Rights  (ECHR). More specifically, the conviction resulted from a series of  public  seminars entitled 'Basic Information on Islam' that the applicant had delivered  at the right-wing Freedom Party Education Institute . One of these seminars was attended...