Yesterday Class 46 posted a note on a reference to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) for a preliminary ruling -- and now here's another one. It's Case C-297/15 Ferring Laegemidler, a request from a Danish Court, the Sø- og Handelsretten, in a case which concerns parallel imports of a medicinal product where the importer has repackaged the product in a new outer packaging and reaffixed the trade mark in a situation where the trade mark proprietor has marketed the product in a the same volume and packet sizes.

 The CJEU has been asked to answer the following questions:

1. Must Article 7(2) of Directive 2008/95 to approximate the laws of the Member States relating to trade marks and the related case-law be interpreted as meaning that a trade mark proprietor may lawfully object to the continued marketing of a medicinal product by a parallel importer, where the importer has repackaged the medicinal product in a new, outer packaging and reaffixed the trade mark in a situation where the trade mark proprietor has marketed the medicinal product in the same volume and packet sizes in all EEA countries where the medicinal product is sold?
    
2. Will the answer to the first question be different if the trade mark proprietor in both the country of export and the country of import has marketed the medicinal product in two different packet sizes (10-piece packets and 1-piece packets) and the importer has purchased 10-piece packets in the country of export and repackaged them in 1-piece packets, on which the trade mark has been reaffixed before the products are marketed in the country of import?

If you would like to comment on this case to the UK Intellectual Property Office please email policy@ipo.gov.uk by 5 August 2015.