Trade Mark Registrations in Bad Faith

With the ever-increasing importance to both manufacturers and consumers of brand advertising and brand awareness, the commercial significance of trade marks continues to grow. Trade mark abuse, including counterfeiting branded products and the wrongful registration of a trade mark belonging to a person or company by another party (a bad faith registration), is a well-known problem in intellectual property law. This book provides practical guidance on protecting trade marks against trade mark grabbing in general and abusive bad faith trade mark registrations in particular. It examines the case law, literature and recent EU developments (including issues relating to the enlargement of the EU) on trade mark registrations in bad faith from both an international and national perspective, and offers a comparative analysis of the relevant rules and regulations in all EU Member States.

1 - General Introduction: Trade Marks and Bad Faith
2 - Bad Faith in Other Areas of Intellectual Property Law
3 - Back to Trade Marks: the System of Trade Mark Obtainment and Protection
4 - Summary
5 - History of Origin
6 - The Trade Mark Directive
7 - The Community Trade Mark Regulation
8 - Summary
9 - Benelux
10 - Germany
11 - France
12 - Italy
13 - The United Kingdom
14 - Ireland
15 - Denmark
16 - Greece
17 - Portugal
18 - Spain
19 - Austria
20 - Finland
21 - Sweden
22 - The New Member States
23 - Evaluation
24 - Towards a Uniform Definition of Bad Faith
25 - Summary

Alexander Tsoutsanis qualified for the Bar and began practicing IP in 2001 at Allen & Overy in Amsterdam. He joined Leiden University in August 2002 to teach and research Intellectual Property Law and earned his PhD on 'Bad faith trade mark applications' in December 2005. He has practised law since 2006 with Klos Morel Vos & Schaap in Amsterdam, and also teaches Intellectual Property Law at Leiden University. Alexander publishes and lectures regularly on all aspects of IP law, and authored several books, which include his book 'Domain name disputes: infringement, tort or bad faith ?' (in Dutch, 2003) and 'Bad faith trade mark applications' (in Dutch, 2005).