News & Publications

The COINTREAU Company filed a claim for infringement of the international, three-dimensional trade mark Nº 553.499 consisting of a bottle with certain features for Classes 32 and 33 with effect in Spain, against the companies Vidirerías Masip, S.A., Licores Deva, S.A. and Destilerías La Vallesana, S.A. for the manufacture and marketing of a liqueur presented in a bottle basically identical to that of the mentioned brand, COINTREAU, without their authorisation.   The plaintiffs opposed this…

In its Judgement of 4 February 2016, the Court of Justice resolved the following preliminary ruling question: Does the first sentence of Article 23.1 of the (EC) Council Regulation 207/2009, of 26 February 2009, referring to a Community trade mark, “Legal acts referred to in Articles 17, 19 and 22 concerning a Community trade mark shall have effects vis-à-vis third parties in all the Member States only after entry in the Register” preclude a licensee who is not entered in the Register from…

Descriptive character.  Article 71)(c), and 2, of Regulation (EC) Nº 207/2009: “the registration of trade marks which consist exclusively of signs or indications which may serve, in trade, to designate the kind, quality, quantity, intended purpose, value, geographical origin or the time of production of the goods or of rendering of the service, or other characteristics of the goods or service will be refused registration”.  Zitro IP Sàrl submitted an application for the registration of a…

The regulation of rights to so called employee inventions can take place both under the Patent Act as well as the Labour Law. To do so under the Patent Act in some way involves confining the regulation to the field of patentable inventions, with those inventions that have not been patented being left out, either due to a lack of patentability requirements or due to this specific protection having been waived. The regulation under the framework of the labour law raises the issue of possible…

On January 23 of this month, the Court of Justice of the EU will dicide on certain issues relating to technological measures implemented by Nintendo to protect their rights (at least this is the purpose stated by Nintendo), giving response to preliminary ruling made by the Court of Milan. The case processing before the Court of Milan is about consoles “DS” and “Wii” manufactured by Nintendo and Nintendo games (or those authorized by Nintendo) which are recorded on data cartridges and DVD…

The fact that the law allows partners to establish “all the pacts and conditions that the founding partners deem appropriate, as long as they are not contrary to the law, and the defining regulatory principles of the chosen social type” (art. 28 TRLSC) in the articles of incorporation and the by-laws is often overlooked. The possibility of including pacts and conditions as a mean to express the autonomy of the will means that there is not precise knowledge about the limits of that autonomy of…

This Law on fighting measures against illegal employment and social security fraud was published in the Official State Gazette of 27 December 2012, modifying certain aspects of the following issues: outsourcing of services issues, Social Security aspects, and infringements and sanctions in social order issues.