“We are looking for cases in which we think that a rather fundamental question is affected where it might be worth raising the voice of trade mark owners,” said Martin Viefhues of Jonas Rechtsanwaltsgesellschaft, who chairs the Team.
MARQUES has previously submitted letters in several CJEU cases – Mondelez v Nestle C-215/14, Voss of Norway C-445/13, LAN Airlines C-198/11 and Bang & Olufsen T-460/05. It has also submitted a letter in the WTO proceedings between Ukraine and Australia (WT/DS/435 and 441) regarding plain packaging.
The Team is particularly keen to be involved in cases where the judge might benefit from background information on the likely impact on brand owners.
“It works where you have a case where the interests of brand owners are pretty clear, and they are all likely to have more or less the same opinion,” said Martin.
The eight-member Team reviews all submissions it receives, and discusses with the MARQUES Council whether it is appropriate to intervene.
“We now have a diverse Team with representatives from all parts of Europe, which is very helpful, but we cannot monitor all pending cases, so we are dependent on people bringing them to us,” said Martin. And, he added: “We need to hear about them before it is too late to intervene!”
Cases can be at the national or EU level, but in practice it is easiest to make the MARQUES voice heard at the CJEU.
“The benefit is that we can raise the voice of trade mark owners, and also build the reputation of MARQUES as a resource for IP knowledge,” said Martin.
If you know of any cases that might be appropriate, you can contact in confidence any members of the Team, who are listed here. Previous submissions can be viewed here.