HUNGARY
company stating that the brand is under trademark protection in Hungary and they should give up illegal use immediately.
It was not diffi cult to learn that during the sales relationship between the British fi rm and its Hungarian distributor, the latter fi led and obtained a national trademark for the brand. Soon aſt er the registration of the trademark this company assigned all rights to a second Hungarian company while a liquidation proceeding was ongoing against this distributor.
In order to gain time and to maintain trademark protection, the British company launched a lawsuit before the Metropolitan Court under Article 19 paragraph 5 and requested that the assignment agreement between the distributor and the company be declared null and void and the trademark should be assigned from the distributor to the British fi rm.
T ere were diff erent disturbing aspects in the proceedings. T ey were silent on the outlined situation, ie, when the agent assigns the ownership of the trademark under question. While it was fairly clear that the assignment agreement can be declared null and void, in this situation the question was what would happen if the distributor was liquidated, because if it doesn’t exist by the date the proceedings are fi nished, then there will be no-one to re-assign the rights.
Based on this fear the British company requested a special speedy proceeding. During the proceeding it was fairly easy for the plaintiff to prove that the distributor was an agent with documentary evidence of the historical relationship between the parties. T e defendant said that it had spent substantial amounts of money and that trademark protection was needed to maintain its exclusive position, but this was rejected by the court.
Further, the defendant pointed out that the plaintiff was only a dealer of several foreign brands, and showed to the court that the plaintiff had advertised and sold well-known foreign brands, and went on to state
www.worldipreview.com World Intellectual Property Review e-Digest 2013 75
IT WAS FAIRLY EASY FOR THE PLAINTIFF TO PROVE THAT THE DISTRIBUTOR WAS AN AGENT, WITH DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE OF THE HISTORICAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE PARTIES.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119