scholarly journals ZNAČAJAN UTJECAJ OBLIKA PROIZVODA NA VRIJEDNOST PROIZVODA KAO APSOLUTNA PREPREKA ZA REGISTRACIJU ŽIGA

2020 ◽  
Vol 36 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 167-200
Author(s):  
Tea Hasić
Keyword(s):  
Case Law ◽  
Trade Mark ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Trademark Law ◽  
Law System ◽  
The Us ◽  
Negative Side Effects ◽  
The One ◽  
Functionality Doctrine ◽  
The Eu

The paper provides a comprehensive analysis of “substantial value rule” as an absolute ground for trademark refusal. Originating from the US “aesthetic functionality doctrine”, the rule took a specific form in the EU. There it was incorporated in Directive (EU) 2015/2436 to approximate the laws of the Member States relating to trade marks – Article 4 (1) (e) (iii), as well as in Regulation (EU) 2017/1001 on the European Union trade mark - Article 7 (1) (e) (iii). Pursuant to “substantial value rule”, signs consisting exclusively of the shape that gives substantial value to the goods are not to be registered as trademarks or, if registered, are liable to be declared invalid. The objective of the paper is therefore threefold: a) to define the rationale of “substantial value rule”; b) to analyze relevant case law; c) to conclude whether a respective rule shall be abolished (providing its purpose may be achieved by other legal instruments without negative side-effects) or kept in the EU trademark law system. Bearing in mind the rationale of “substantial value rule” (on the one hand) and numerous problems that arise whenever “substantial value rule” is applied in practice (on the other hand) the paper provides guidelines for its appropriate interpretation.

Eliminating ‘Aesthetics’ from Copyright Law: The Aftermath of Cofemel

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Koray Güven
Keyword(s):  
Copyright Protection ◽  
Copyright Law ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
Applied Art ◽  
Copyright Laws ◽  
The One ◽  
Works Of Applied Art ◽  
Functionality Doctrine ◽  
The Eu

Abstract The recent Cofemel judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union extended the European Union’s (EU) originality criterion (i.e. the author’s own intellectual creation) to the realm of works of applied art. The Court excluded ‘aesthetically significant visual effect’ as a condition of copyright protection. It was condemned as subjective and incompatible with the EU originality criterion. The decision may signal a shift in several national copyright laws, under which requirements relating to ‘aesthetics’ are laid down as a condition to acquire protection. This article will demonstrate that the ‘aesthetics criterion’, as it emerged historically and has been employed in national copyright laws, is associated with a different meaning than it conveys at first glance. The aesthetics criterion designates the elbow room remaining to the author after functional constraints have been taken into account, and thus represents a form of the functionality doctrine in the domain of copyright law. However, to some extent it also excludes – though not uniformly – commonplace designs from the scope of copyright protection. Against this background, this article suggests that the aesthetics criterion can arguably be reconciled with the EU originality criterion. The aesthetics criterion represents a balance struck between the need for copyright protection in the field of applied arts, on the one hand, and competition, on the other. In order not to upset this careful balance, a robust application of the EU originality criterion is advocated, precluding protection not only to functionality, but also to commonplace creations.

scholarly journals The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Macroeconomic Aggregates of the European Union

ECONOMICS ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 91-108
Author(s):  
Aleksandar Đukić ◽  
Mirjana Štaka ◽  
Dajana Drašković
Keyword(s):  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Economic Losses ◽  
The European Union ◽  
The Us ◽  
Economic Migration ◽  
The One ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Eu ◽  
Macroeconomic Aggregates

Abstract Economic experts’ predictions of a slowdown in the EU’s global economy and economic growth in the year 2020 were based on various risks and uncertainties existing on a world scale, ranging from the US-China trade war, traditionally strained relations of the EU and the US on the one hand and the Russian Federation on the other, all the way to BREXIT and economic migration to developed EU countries. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has further aggravated those forecasts, so that the entire EU is recording a historic decline in all macroeconomic aggregates. The beginning of the pandemic in the EU was accompanied by the complete border lockdown of the entire Union, which greatly affected the economies of the member states. The EU is experiencing a decline of both real and nominal GDP, declining incomes, employment decline and unemployment increase. This paper will investigate the impact of COVID-19 onto GDP, unemployment, and EU public debt. Correlation-regression analysis confirms the positive correlation between these variables and the economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to the economic crisis, a crisis of EU health systems, which requires huge economic investments. A more prominent economic recovery is hard to expect until the global pandemic ends. One thing is for certain, this economic crisis will continue in 2021, whereby a more significant recovery is expected only in the year 2022. Certainly, it will take years to make up for the economic losses caused by the pandemic.

scholarly journals Legal Obstacles for Chinese Companies Investing in the Infrastructure Construction in the Europea Union: From a Labour Law Perspective

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 28
Author(s):  
Kai Liu
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
The Other ◽  
Infrastructure Investment ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Labour Law ◽  
Law System ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Chinese Companies ◽  
The One ◽  
The Eu

Annual infrastructure investment by Chinese companies in Europe continues to climb. However, the legal obstacles arising from the labour law system of the European Union has been not paid sufficient attention to. This research has taken use of a legal analyzing approach, to probe into on the one hand, the EU labour law framework; and on the other hand, to analyze the specific aspects of the labour law filed which would lead to the legal obstacles against the Chinese companies investing in the infrastructure construction.

scholarly journals The Constitutional Court of Romania and European Union Law

2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-85
Author(s):  
Dragoş Călin
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Constitutional Court ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Eu Accession ◽  
European Union Law ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
The One ◽  
Normative Content ◽  
The Eu

Abstract The Constitutional Court of Romania has subjected the introduction of a norm of European Union law into the constitutionality control, as an interposed norm to the standard norm. On the one hand, the norm should be sufficiently clear, precise and unequivocal in itself, or its meaning should have been clearly, precisely and unequivocally established by the Court of Justice of the European Union, and on the other hand it should be circumscribed by a certain level of constitutional relevance, so that its normative content could support the possible breach of the Constitution - the only direct standard norm within the constitutionality control - by national law. However, the experience of the Constitutional Court of Romania over the eight years (2007-2014) since the EU accession, does not seem to be very convincing, irrespective of the way in which European Union law, including the case law of the CJUE has been used: as justifying or circumstantial argument, as a mere reference or in an inadequate context.

scholarly journals The Right to Family Reunion vs Integration Conditions for Third-Country Nationals

2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 251-288 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrycja Dąbrowska-Kłosińska
Keyword(s):  
Case Law ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Family Reunion ◽  
Law System ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
Individual Assessment ◽  
The Right ◽  
Migration Law ◽  
The Eu ◽  
Third Country Nationals

Abstract The article explores the approach of the Court of Justice of the European Union to the clash between the fundamental right to family reunion and the powers of Member States to protect national identity as a manifestation of sovereignty. The recent case-law pertinent to national measures imposing pre-entry, integration conditions on foreigners and the latter rights under the Directive 2006/83/EC (‘FRD’) on the right of third-country nationals to family reunion provides a basis for the analysis. The aim of this article is to establish and appraise the Court’s approach to the conflict in question. My claim is that the CJEU should have been more restrictive in its reasoning regarding the pre-entry integration measures, and that its interpretation based on individual assessment, proportionality principle and effet utile may not be sufficient for a scrutiny of national powers under FRD. I thus argue that the Court should be more proactive to provide a constitutional, contextual and systemic interpretation of the right to family reunion under the FRD, Article 7 and 24 of the EU Charter and the EU migration law system.

scholarly journals Why is the Functionality Doctrine in Trade Mark Law worth Advanced (Re)Consideration?

2019 ◽  
pp. 43-54
Author(s):  
Lavinia Brancusi
Keyword(s):  
Law And Economics ◽  
Trade Mark ◽  
Market Definition ◽  
Trademark Law ◽  
The Us ◽  
Trade Dress ◽  
Competition Rules ◽  
Trade Mark Law ◽  
Comparative Results ◽  
Functionality Doctrine

This article considers the necessity of preparing a comprehensive study, over absolute refusal grounds pertaining to functional signs set in the EU trademark law, which would meet the business community’s need to register non-traditional trade marks. The study aims to define the exact scope of the aforementioned exclusions through objective criteria that can render them a workable tool, distinct from refusal grounds pertaining to distinctiveness, and able to solve problems of overlapping rights. As its specific research methodology, the study adopts comparative results coming from the US trade dress functionality doctrine, and a specific input offered from a ‘law and economics’ perspective, including competition rules related to market definition and substitutability of products.

TTIP, CETA, and TiSA Behind Closed Doors

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Panagiotis Delimatsis
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Global Governance ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
European Parliament ◽  
Trade Negotiations ◽  
The European Union ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Eu

Secrecy and informality rather than transparency traditionally reign trade negotiations at the bilateral, regional, and multilateral levels. Yet, transparency ranks among the most basic desiderata in the grammar of global governance and has been regarded as positively related to legitimacy. In the EU’s case, transparent trade diplomacy is quintessential for constitutional—but also for broader political—reasons. First, even if trade matters fall within the EU’s exclusive competence, the EU executive is bound by the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) to inform the European Parliament, the EU co-legislator, in regular intervals. Second, transparency at an early stage is important to address public reluctance, suspicion, or even opposition regarding a particular trade deal. This chapter chronicles the quest for and turning moments relating to transparency during the EU trade negotiations with Canada (CETA); the US (TTIP), and various WTO members on services (TiSA).

scholarly journals Characteristics of Precedent: The Case Law of the European Court of Justice in Three Dimensions

2015 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. 1073-1098 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mattias Derlén ◽  
Johan Lindholm
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Eu Law ◽  
The European Union ◽  
European Union Law ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
European Court ◽  
Number Of Factors ◽  
The One

AbstractThe case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) is one of the most important sources of European Union law. However, case law's role in EU law is not uniform. By empirically studying how the Court uses its own case law as a source of law, we explore the correlation between, on the one hand, the characteristics of a CJEU case—type of action, actors involved, and area of law—and, on the other hand, the judgment's “embeddedness” in previous case law and value as a precedent in subsequent cases. Using this approach, we test, confirm, and debunk existing scholarship concerning the role of CJEU case law as a source of EU law. We offer the following conclusions: that CJEU case law cannot be treated as a single entity; that only a limited number of factors reliably affect a judgment's persuasive or precedential power; that the Court's use of its own case law as a source of law is particularly limited in successful infringement proceedings; that case law is particularly important in preliminary references—especially those concerning fundamental freedoms and competition law; and that initiating Member State and the number of observations affects the behavior of the Court.

scholarly journals Sustainability in the European Union: Analyzing the Discourse of the European Green Deal

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 80
Author(s):  
Eva Eckert ◽  
Oleksandra Kovalevska
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
European Commission ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Main Question ◽  
The European Union ◽  
International Media ◽  
Institutional Power ◽  
The One ◽  
The Eu

In the European Union, the concern for sustainability has been legitimized by its politically and ecologically motivated discourse disseminated through recent policies of the European Commission and the local as well as international media. In the article, we question the very meaning of sustainability and examine the European Green Deal, the major political document issued by the EC in 2019. The main question pursued in the study is whether expectations verbalized in the Green Deal’s plans, programs, strategies, and developments hold up to the scrutiny of critical discourse analysis. We compare the Green Deal’s treatment of sustainability to how sustainability is presented in environmental and social science scholarship and point out that research, on the one hand, and the politically motivated discourse, on the other, do not correlate and often actually contradict each other. We conclude that sustainability discourse and its keywords, lexicon, and phraseology have become a channel through which political institutions in the EU such as the European Commission sideline crucial environmental issues and endorse their own presence. The Green Deal discourse shapes political and institutional power of the Commission and the EU.

scholarly journals The Trend of Scientific Productivity of Chinese, EuropeanUnion, and United States Universities and Private Companies: Does the Future Belong to E-Technology Companies?

Publications ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 18
Author(s):  
Mauro G. Carta ◽  
Matthias C. Angermeyer ◽  
Silvano Tagliagambe
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
European Union ◽  
Scientific Productivity ◽  
The United States ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Private Companies ◽  
American Universities ◽  
The Us ◽  
Parametric Statistics ◽  
The Eu

The purpose is to verify trends of scientific production from 2010 to 2020, considering the best universities of the United States, China, the European Union (EU), and private companies. The top 30 universities in 2020 in China, the EU, and the US and private companies were selected from the SCImago institutions ranking (SIR). The positions in 2020, 2015, and 2010 in SIR and three sub-indicators were analyzed by means of non-parametric statistics, taking into consideration the effect of time and group on rankings. American and European Union universities have lost positions to Chinese universities and even more to private companies, which have improved. In 2020, private companies have surpassed all other groups considering Innovation as a sub-indicator. The loss of leadership of European and partly American universities mainly concerns research linked to the production of patents. This can lead to future risks of monopoly that may elude public control and cause a possible loss of importance of research not linked to innovation.

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