CJEU: the storage of goods by a natural person acting as an economic operator constitutes a use in the course of trade

A, the holder of the international trademark INA for ball bearings, pursued B, a private individual who had received from China 150 counterfeit ball bearings — 710 kg — stored them at his home in Finland and then handed them over to a third party for export to Russia, in exchange for cigarettes and cognac. Acquitted on appeal on the ground that he had not made commercial use of the sign, B saw the case reach the Finnish Supreme Court, which referred questions to the CJEU. The Court's answer (A v. B, C-772/18, 30 April 2020) is notable: trademark law applies to any person who, in view of the volume, frequency and nature of the operations, acts as an economic operator, whether or not commerce is their profession; ownership of the goods, knowledge of the infringement and the fact that the goods were destined for a third country are of little relevance. Civil infringement is an objective wrong, requiring no proof of intent.

Brand and trademark infringement on Twitter

By turning verification into a product — the blue badge for eight dollars a month with Twitter Blue, without real authentication — Twitter dismantled overnight the very signal that used to distinguish authentic accounts from impostors. The consequences were immediate: a fake George W. Bush account collected thousands of retweets; 'verified' accounts impersonated Apple, Nestlé, Tesla and SpaceX, publishing fake announcements with massive engagement; others directed users to phishing sites promising free verification through wallet authentication. Where the badge once reassured, it now lends credibility to fraud at a trivial cost. The article draws the operational consequences for brand owners: strengthen social listening, monitor handles and lookalikes as closely as domain names, report impersonations promptly through the platforms' procedures, and treat social networks as a full component of anti-phishing and brand-protection programmes.

16 November 2022
Initially published on iptwins.com

The geographical name of national importance: common good or private monopoly?

The France.com case made an impression — it may also mark a turning point in the legal regime of geographical names of national importance. International law offers them little: Article 6ter of the Paris Convention protects flags and emblems, not country names, and TRIPS is silent. Since the 2000s and the rise of nation branding, states have claimed sovereign control over their names: ICANN’s GAC recommended in 2007 avoiding the registration of country names, and Specification 5 subjects them, in the new gTLDs, to government consent — though of 94 states concerned, only ten have expressly waived their reservation. The Cour de cassation’s ruling of 6 April 2022, making the name “France” an element of the State’s identity, strengthens the sovereign reading. Blockchain extensions such as .ETH, beyond any of these safeguards, reopen the whole question — common good or private monopoly?

3 October 2022
Initially published on iptwins.com

DNS Abuse: How Can Domain Names Linked to the Same Actor Be Connected?

On 18 August 2026, ICANN published for public comment the Initial Report of its DNS Abuse Mitigation Policy Development Process (PDP 1). Among its proposals are Associated Domain Checks: when a registrar acts on an abuse report, it should also examine the other domain names held by the same customer. In its comments of 25 September 2026, the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center supports the approach but points out its main limitation: the checks stop at the edge of a single registrar's portfolio. Bad actors know this and spread their registrations across several registrars, which hampers consolidated UDRP proceedings. WIPO suggests exploring cross-registrar mechanisms without saying which data could link the names. The article argues that payment data, pseudonymised, could serve as that common denominator, while acknowledging its limits (prepaid cards, fraud, multiple payment methods): an indicator rather than proof. It marks a shift from a one-domain, one-investigation logic to a network approach.

28 September 2026
Initially published on iptwins.com

DNS and Web3: How Can We Avoid Importing Cryptosquatting into the DNS?

The DNS and blockchain-based alternative naming systems are converging, with projects such as .BLOCKCHAIN and the .ROBOT cryptoTLD seeking to operate the same string in both worlds. In August 2026, ICANN's Technical Study Group released an Initial Report on integrating gTLDs with alternative naming systems, built on a "string + controller" principle: the same name must remain under the same control across systems, with its status kept in sync. In September 2026, the SSAC supported this synchronisation but noted that applying the UDRP and the URS becomes difficult when a registrant exists only in an alternative system, without conventional registration data. The WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center warns that cybersquatting is already widespread in these systems: mapping names automatically into the DNS would import existing infringements. Trademark owners therefore need functionally equivalent protection mechanisms, including a way to prevent infringing names from being activated, as initiatives like Unstoppable Domains joining GlobalBlock have begun to show.

24 September 2026
Initially published on iptwins.com

Article Information

Author

Emmanuel Gillet

Publication Date

18 June 2020

Jurisdiction

Industry

Related Decision(s)

C-772/18Court of Justice of the European UnionA v. B (INA ball bearings)2020-04-30
C-567/18Court of Justice of the European UnionCoty Germany GmbH v. Amazon2020-04-02
C-324/09Court of Justice of the European UnionL'Oréal SA v. eBay International AG2011-07-12
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