On 26 March 2018, the Faculty of Law and Administration of Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań had the pleasure to host Prof. Lionel Bently of Cambridge University, who presented his lecture entitled “Claims, Notice and Property Definition in the Law of Trade Marks”. The lecture was organised with the support of SMM Legal by the Faulty, the British Law Centre and the Intellectual Property and Competition Law Society.
Prof. Bently is a distinguished scholar recognized worldwide for his expertise in the field of intellectual property. He has authored, co-authored and edited a number of highly appreciated academic publications and textbooks, and currently co-manages the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law at Cambridge University. Moreover, he serves on the editorial boards of recognized academic Journals (such as European Intellectual Property Review) and belongs to prestigious academic associations (including the European Copyright Society). He has taught at King’s College in London, and was a visiting professor at the National University of Singapore and the University of Toronto.
In his lecture, Professor discussed the relationship between the content of trademark register and the scope of trademark protection, which is affected by other external factors as well. He concluded that the EU system of trademark protection actually involves two separate regimes of protection – applicable to trademarks which are and are not used in business dealings respectively. When it comes to the latter, competitors face much more uncertainty in terms of a potential breach of EU trademark rights, since they cannot rely on the content of the entries to the register entirely, but need to take the manner of use of the trademark into account.
The lecture was attended by the members of the SMM Legal Intellectual Property Law Department, while Prof. Rafał Sikorski, Senior Partner at our Firm, greeted and introduced Prof. Bently on behalf of the organisers.
The lecture was followed by a moot court competition finale, with two teams consisting of Faculty students competing against each other in a moot General Court case concerning an objection against an application to register an EU trademark. The dispute was settled by the panel composed of Prof. Lionel Bently, Prof. Rafał Sikorski, Ms. Denise Ashmore – Director of British Law Centre and Prof. Katarzyna Klafkowska-Waśniowska of the Chair of European Law at Adam Mickiewicz University. Members of the winning team included two assistants working at our Firm’s Intellectual Property Law Department – Ms. Zuzanna Gulczyńska and Ms. Julia Lewandowska. Congratulations!
