Bad faith in the registration and use of trademarks in Europe : a comparative study

Abstract

Constant improvements in the world economy and the reform of the European trademark system, recently proposed by the European Commission, grants an exceptional significance to the topic under consideration. Taking into account, that two major legislative instruments governing the European trade mark system, which are the 1994 Community Trade Mark Regulation (now codified as Regulation 2007/2009) (CTMR) and the 1989 Trade Mark Directive (now codified as Directive 2008/95) (TMD), haven’t been modified for around 15 years, one can realize that the provisions of these two documents became irrelevant with regard to business environment that has changed significantly during this period of time. There are also new ways of the competition distortion, which are not regulated enough by existing legislation, including bad faith rule in the registration and use of trademarks. The current European legislation does not define bad faith, moreover case law has insufficient data base to be used for resolution of disputes concerning the application of the rule of bad faith.