European Court of Justice: De-branding (and re-branding) protected by EU trademark law

On 25 July 2018, the European Court of Justice (“ECJ” or the “Court”) rendered judgment in the Mitsubishi case (C-129/17) on the issues of de-branding and subsequent re-branding of goods imported into the EU. The Court examined whether such conduct could be considered a “use in the course of trade” and could therefore benefit from the protection of EU trademark law. Disagreeing with the Advocate-General (“AG”), the Court held that it could.

Read the the article in full here.