RoMAnIA
tHE JURIsPRUDEnCE HAs DEfInED qUItE CLEARLY tHE MAIn fEAtUREs
of BAD fAItH WHEn It CoMEs to tRADEMARK REGIstRAtIon
good faith in the new Member State prior to the date of accession of that Th erefore, from this perspective, it is of less importance if the claimant
State”, in order for a later mark to be prohibited. used or did not use the mark registered by the appellant-defendant, the
partner of his distributor in Romania.
Romania acceded to the EU on January 1, 2007, but companies knew the
date approximately a year earlier. Th e use, previous to the registration by the appellant-defendant, of the
mark by the claimant represents just the fact through which he justifi es
Th ere were some applicants (both foreign and Romanian) who took advantage
the interest in lodging the cancellation action, as well as an aspect of the
of this information in 2006 to fi le applications with the Romanian Patent
substantiation of the claim, namely the way the applicant would have
and Trademark Offi ce for trademarks that were registered as Community
been aware of the mark.
Trademarks and whose validity in Romania would start as of January 1, 2007.
Th e previous use of the mark can be replaced with any other act, fact or
Under national law, ex offi cio examination for prior rights is still carried out.
circumstance that indicates the fact that the applicant of the registration
Th e Romanian examiners could not deny the registration of these applications,
was acquainted with or could have been acquainted with minimum eff ort
although it was crystal clear that they were applied for in bad faith, because
with the fact that his trade partner created the sign and was interested
this falls within the competence of the Municipal Court of Bucharest. As a
or could have been interested by the respective sign, by hypothesis this
result, many trademarks were granted, all having a date of deposit prior to
preoccupation being the inspiration source for the registration of the
January 1, 2007.
mark by the applicant.”
Some of these trademark registrations are now subject to cancellation
Th e true owners of the marks face problems in these cases because they
proceedings for bad faith registration.
have to rely solely on the hypothesis that the applicant of the registration
Under Romanian law, complainants must provide evidence of the bad faith could have been acquainted through minimum eff ort with the existence of
of the registrant. Although neither the Trademarks Law nor the Civil Code the earlier Community Trademark; in the majority of the cases, there was
explain what bad faith is, the jurisprudence has defi ned quite clearly the no commercial relationship between the rightful owner and the applicant.
main features of bad faith when it comes to trademark registration (GBC Would ‘minimum’ eff ort involve consulting the Offi ce of Harmonization for
Corporation v. POP, Decision of the Court of First Instance No. 475): the Internal Market’s (OHIM’s) public database online, for example?
“In this specifi c case the behavior of the applicant at the moment of fi ling At the time of writing, there is no fi nal court decision that could shed some
the trademark application is the one that really matters. light on the interpretation of the bad faith registration of the national marks
www.worldipreview.com World Intellectual Property Review Digest 2009 135
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