Status, Character and Hierarchic Position of the Regulation of the Right of Intellectual and Industrial Property in the European Union Against the Background of Judicial Decisions of the Tribunal of Justice

Abstract

In the current legal status of the Community law, regulations of the intellectual and industrial property in the EU usually are not uniform and unambiguous, and sometimes they come into conflict with acts of the international and national law. Within the Community law, in the approach to the discussed sphere of regulations three often conflicting tendencies are especially easily seen: the tendency to secure a free flow of commodities, to secure efficient competence and to protect the subjective rights of intellectual and industrial property. The proclaimed law uses both directives and enactments here. Diversity of solutions in the mutual relations of the national law and acquis on the one hand and the above mentioned elements and regulations of international conventions makes the picture complete. It seems that the significant issue is only to a small extent noticed by the doctrine and the Tribunal of Justice that supplies casuistic solutions. Its judicature is uniform and has a great significance in the sphere of exhausting rights from the sign, or typical copyright, whereas in the most important issues connected with functioning of the domestic market judicial decisions by the Tribunal become instructive in a very small degree… What is more, it is hard to see a tendency or perspectives for solving this situation that is unfavorable both from the point of view of acquis communautaire, the domestic market and protection of the subjective rights. Especially when the process of implementing the Constitution for Europe (Constitutional Treaty of the EU) that made the regulations in the discussed issue uniform has been stopped.