The impending European trade mark reform package has now been approved in the European Parliament Plenary session yesterday.

MARQUES members will already know that the new rules, informally agreed with the Council of Ministers, will affect not only regular registration and infringement issues but will also make it possible to impound counterfeit goods in transit through EU territory. The new rules are also intended to safeguard freedom of expression, like parody and artistic freedom, as well as ensuring access to generic medicines for developing countries. The extent to which they do so will almost certainly be tested out by litigants on both sides of the IP divide, and it's quite possible that the full extent of the proposed changes will only be discovered once the Court of Justice of the European Union has had a chance to interpret them.

To read the European Parliament's press release, which comes with links to further reading, just click here 

To see what the MARQUES Trade Mark Reform Task Force has been up to, click here