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Can a Parallel Importer Rebrand Pharmaceutical Products in the EU? Cover

Can a Parallel Importer Rebrand Pharmaceutical Products in the EU?

Open Access
|Jul 2019

Abstract

The European Union has established the free movement of goods, which covers the parallel import of goods in the EU. However, the free movement of goods should not infringe on the rights of trade mark owners. In some cases, parallel importer needs not only to repackage but also to rebrand pharmaceutical products. ECJ has stated that rebranding is permissible if objective necessity to rebrand exists. But it is the national court that has to determine what objective necessity is. This paper analyses the decisions of EU Member States. In some cases, objective necessity has been determined on similar grounds. However, in other cases, a necessity to enter some part of the market has been evaluated differently in different Member States. The different evaluation of the necessity criterion could be treated as the infringement of uniform application of the free movement of goods in the EU.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/bjes-2019-0004 | Journal eISSN: 2674-4619 | Journal ISSN: 2674-4600
Language: English
Page range: 57 - 76
Published on: Jul 30, 2019
Published by: Tallinn University of Technology
In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services
Publication frequency: 2 issues per year

© 2019 Jurgita Grigienė, Paulius Čerka, Dalia Perkumienė, published by Tallinn University of Technology
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.