| Abstract [eng] |
EU trademark has a unitary character which means that EU trademark has an equal effect throughout the entire European Union: it cannot be registered, transferred or surrendered or be the subject of a decision revoking the rights of the proprietor or declaring it invalid, nor can its use be prohibited, save in respect of the whole Union. EU trademark and its unitary character contributes to the creation of a single European market, removal of barriers to free movement of goods and services and ensures that competition is not distorted. The main goal of this Master thesis is to learn how widely the principle of a unitary character is applied in the EU trademark system when new controversial issues arise. Therefore, this Master thesis presents three main issues connected to the unitary character of a EU trademark. The first part of this Master thesis analyses the problem of genuine use of the EU trademark. The second part focuses on the question of assessing the territorial scope of evidence required to prove whether an EU trademark has acquired distinctive character through use of the mark in the European Union. And the third part of this Master thesis examines the possibility of limiting the territorial scope of EU-wide injunctions in case of infringement of an EU trade mark on the basis of likelihood of confusion. |
