Public Lecture – Thursday 8 March 2018, 18:00, Room EB306
The exercise of trademark rights relating to shapes may have a negative impact on competition in relevant markets. The materialization of this impact, and hence the conflict with the essentially pro-competitive vocation of a trademark’s fundamental distinctive function, especially relates to three-dimensional shapes, in particular those “intrinsic” to the finished product itself, or the form of its packaging when the product does not or cannot have a three-dimensional shape, like in the case of liquids.
The Lecture addresses the competition-related issues arising from the registrability of three-dimensional shapes of industrial products, in light of the European legal framework and the systemic dystopias and over-protectionist consequences stemming from the coexistence of trademark and registered design protection. It presents an interpretative solution capable of overcoming such impasse in a pro-competitive perspective.
Gustavo Ghidini is Professor of IP and Competition at LUISS University, Rome, where he is also Director of the Osservatorio di Proprietà intellettuale Concorrenza e Comunicazioni. He also held, from 2006 to 2016, the Chair of Intellectual Property and Competition Law at the University of Milan. He is Past President (2005-2007) of ATRIP.
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