On 20 December 2017, the Court of Justice of the European Union (“ECJ”) handed down its judgment in Case C-291/16 Schweppes v Red Paralela and Others. The ECJ held that the owner of a trademark may not oppose the parallel importation of goods bearing an identical trademark but originating in another Member State in circumstances where the owner has assigned the parallel trademark to a third party but is responsible for maintaining the image and impression of a uni ed global trademark. In his non-binding opinion, Advocate General (“AG”) Mengozzi had earlier proposed to develop the case-law on the exhaustion of trademark rights in the case of a voluntary fragmentation of parallel rights by signi cantly broadening the interpretation of ‘economic links’ between the parallel rights owners (see
The EU Court of Justice clarifies exhaustion of trademark principles and broadens the interpretation of economic links between trademark owners (Schweppes / Red Paralela)
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