Latest blog articles

In the 1980s, in the heyday of Thatcherism, Scottish actor Ian Richardson starred in the leading role of Francis Urquhart in the BBC series House of Cards. In it, Urquhart, who starts out as the Chief Whip for the Conservative government led by Thatcher’s fictional successor, schemes against and...

Recently, the General Court in the HELL coffee case has confirmed that a descriptive foreign language term (German word HELL) can be granted protection under EU trade mark law (Hell Energy v. EUIPO, T-323/20).

When we talk about Trade Marks Trolls we don’t mean the ugly creature that might come to your mind. Instead, we speak about practices that constitute an abuse of trade mark law. So, how to defend yourself against such behaviour?

Can a single colour alone be a trademark? The question is neither new nor unexplored. However, old wine in a new bottle is presented by the General Court in its decision rejecting an attempt to register a shade of colour for inhalers for asthma and related pharmaceutical preparations, reinstating...

Using the trade mark of someone else to describe how your own products relate to the trademark products is allowed under certain circumstances. Recently, the law changed in this respect, leaving the application of some factors uncertain.

(1798-1872). Dutch liberal statesman. Drafted the 1848 revision of the Dutch Constitution that established the parliamentary system.

Since the educational spaces in our faculty have all been named, we would like to tell about the background of the elected jurists and cases. Through a series of blogs we want to make the names come to life and show that our building houses a legal faculty. After all, not everyone knows all the ins...

On Tuesday, 7 April the Dutch Eerste Kamer approved an urgent bill digital decision-making for local authorities, de spoedwet digitale besluitvorming. The law ensures that municipal councils, provincial states, water boards as well as island councils will be able to take decisions digitally for as...

The current pandemic caused by the Corona virus has had a decisive impact to all areas of life: from moving school and University education online, to shutting down non-essential businesses while a range of emergency measures were adopted throughout the world for those finding themselves unemployed...

Monday, 9 March 2020 marked the 100th day in office of the new European Commission under President Von der Leyen. The Commission had promised to deliver a number of priorities set out in the President’s Political Guidelines by this self-imposed deadline – priorities that, however, do not include any...