CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2021
| Author | Abilova, Narmin |
|---|---|
| Title | The Changes To The Regulation Of European Union Trade Marks (EUTMs) After Brexit: A Unitary EUTM Turns Into Two, One For The UK And One For The Rest Of The EU27 |
| Summary | After the membership of more than 40 years, the UK’s exit from the European Union has generated considerable uncertainties and concerns in various areas. These uncertainties manifest themselves in all legal matters concerning EU law. It is clearly evident that Brexit will have an impact on different fields of law. One of the affected areas of law by Brexit will be intellectual property rights. In this capstone project, I will provide an overview of the influence of Brexit on one of the intellectual property rights, especially trade marks and will examine the critical implications of the Brexit that it will create in the regulation of trade marks. As a member state of the EU, the UK trade mark laws have been designed under the impact of the EU approach. It is fair to state that, in the post-Brexit period, trade mark owners who are planning to use their trademarks in the EU and vice-versa in the UK will face several legal problems since their intellectual property interests will be vulnerable to third-party infringers with significant financial consequences. Taking into account the challenges that Brexit will pose in the regulation of trade marks, the aim of the capstone thesis is to demonstrate how Brexit will change the current situation and have an impact on trademark owners in the EU and the UK. For this purpose, this capstone project will explore the principal question of to what extent the Withdrawal Agreement, which has been signed between the UK and the EU, is effective? I will examine the relevant legislation, case law, and mainly reports prepared by the legal firms to analyze the implications of Brexit on the regulation of trade marks and I will especially focus on the issues of revocation for non-use and the principle of regional exhaustion post-Brexit. I argue that the Withdrawal Agreement provides minimum standards in trade mark regulation after the transition period, but in practice, the process will be double costly for the brand owners. The examination of the revocation issue for non-use requirement of trade marks shows that the parties came to compromise and agreed to protect the trade marks which had been solely used in the EU and not been put into genuine use in the territory of the United Kingdom before the end of the transition period. However, the UK still needs to implement a domestic law to regulate the “use” requirement for the trade marks which will be registered after the transition period. Regarding the post-Brexit exhaustion scenario, any regime needs to balance various interests, and this balancing issue can be achieved with the implementation of the international exhaustion regime. |
| Supervisor | Prof. Alvaro Fernandez de la Mora |
| Department | Legal Studies LLM |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2021/abilova_narmin.pdf |
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