At the annual regional seminar for judges on current issues in intellectual property (IP) rights protection organized by the Latvian Patent Office, judges and international experts discussed the limits of patent law and copyright, bad faith in trade mark registration, as well as analysed current decisions of the Court of Justice of the European Union and other national courts on possible or actual trade mark infringement.
The participants of the two-day seminar, which took place in Liepāja on September 12 and 13, were judges from Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Poland, the representative of the Judicial Institute of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Inés Fernández Ulate, IP enforcement expert Erling Vestergaard from the European Observatory on Infringements of Intellectual Property Rights, President of the Unified Patent Court of Appeal Klaus Grabinski, Senior Appointed Person Hearing Trade Mark Appeals from the United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office Geoffrey Hobbs, Judge at the Supreme Court of the Republic of Latvia Zane Pētersone, and other internationally recognized IPR experts.
At the opening of the seminar, Director of the Latvian Patent Office Agris Batalauskis emphasized that the seminar brought together almost all Latvian judges dealing with IP cases, and such a response shows how important the judicial system is for the IP sector. "The judicial system ensures that IP rights protection issues are put in order, that the interests of rights owners and the society are balanced, which is an essential prerequisite for the existence and development of the IP sector," said Mr. Batalauskis, addressing the participants of the seminar and drawing their attention to the fact that with the development of the IP sector IP protection issues become increasingly complex. "The IP sector is becoming more and more important nowadays, and everything we see around us, in one way or another, is related to IP. It is no longer just a physical, but also a virtual environment. It is also a challenge for the judicial system - how to balance the rights of all parties," continued the Director of the Latvian Patent Office.
The importance of the annual seminar was also emphasized by Ms. Fernández Ulate: " IP stands as a key driver for fostering innovation and creativity in societies, essential for global growth and development. As the IP landscape undergoes rapid transformation due to technological advancements, the judiciary must remain agile and adapt to these changes. This is especially pertinent in the context of commercial realities shaped by globalization, economic integration, and digitalization. … In this environment, we believe that transnational fora such as this regional seminar are of crucial importance."
On the first seminar day, the international experts covered a number of IP litigation issues including the recent case law, analysing trademark infringement cases, explaining how the judicial practice was implemented in each specific case, and taking into account various aspects, for example, in which EU member state an infringement claim was filed; the liability of online trading platforms for third party products; legal reasons against further sale of trademarked products, and other topicalities.
The IP sector is also closely connected with information technology (IT) and with the rapid development of the virtual environment, and Mr. Vestergaard introduced the seminar participants to the latest trends in this field, namely the impact of the metaverse on IP. Although the metaverse is only at the early stage of its development, it is necessary to prepare for the fact that the progress of the virtual environment will increasingly influence the IP sector, which will mean the necessary balancing of the rights in the virtual and physical environments. Mr. Vestergaard also noted that the rapid development of the metaverse is temporarily hindered by an insufficient data transfer speed.
The first seminar day concluded with a discussion on trade marks filed possibly in bad faith, where the participants sought to agree on whether there is a difference between bad faith and malice in trade mark registration. Malicious registration of a trade mark refers to cases where the trade mark applicant deliberately uses a specific well-known name that has already gained trust and recognition of the public, but its creator has not registered it. In such cases, the unscrupulous trade mark applicant seeks, by taking advantage of legal loopholes, to deliberately harm true right holders that have previously used their trademarks. During the discussion, some cases of such trademark registrations were covered, including the examples of the Latvian case law.
The second day of the seminar began with the presentations on copyright protection. In Poland the number of cases when a court has to decide whether a particular work is eligible for copyright protection increases annually. Judge Agnieszka Gołaszewska of the Court of Appeal in Warsaw spoke about the factors that are crucial in making decisions. Christina Langer, Associate Legal Officer at the Copyright Law Division of the Copyright and Creative Industries Sector of the World Intellectual Property Organization, focused on the rights of representatives of creative industries, especially stage directors.
In judicial practice, the assessment of the distinctiveness of shape and colour marks, as well as the role of e-evidence in trade mark and design cases are becoming increasingly topical. Legal Secretary at the General Court of the European Union (EU) Andrej Stec gave an overview of the EU case law related to shape trade marks and explained the reasons for registration refusal, as well as stressed the importance of the fact whether the sign is registered as a shape trade mark or a two-dimensional one. Continuing his presentation, Mr. Stec provided an insight into the EU case law related to the protection of trade marks in the e-environment and gave examples of how to prove a third party’s conduct in bad faith in such cases.
The eighth annual seminar for judges ended with a discussion and an analysis of the case law of the Baltic states and Polish intellectual property courts, led by Dace Liberte, Chairperson of the Industrial Property Board of Appeal of the Latvian Patent Office. The participants of the discussion analysed court proceedings and judicial reasoning in cases such as infringement of the Sigulda municipality’s trade mark "S!", a name dispute between two heating boiler companies in Lithuania, as well as the Estonian examples, when a defendant was an owner of IP addresses corresponding to websites where counterfeit products resembling goods of well-known trade mark owners were sold, and also a claim filed by a composer for copyright infringement for using of a fragment of his work that was initially intended for one concrete advertising clip in other numerous ads. In turn, a judge from the Circuit Court in Katowice, Poland, presented a copyright dispute in which the decisive factor was the sufficient proof of IP ownership.
The training is organized annually by the Latvian Patent Office in cooperation with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), and the European Patent Office (EPO). The purpose of the event is to ensure high-quality professional development and further education of employees of the judicial system, paying special attention to IP enforcement to increase the quality of court judgments and prepare the national judges for high quality work in the legal system of the European Union.