Posts Tagged: "EU Member States"

On September 24, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) delivered its decision in case C-507/17, Google v. CNIL regarding the territorial scope of the “right to be forgotten”. Google Inc. had filed an appeal with the French Council of State (FCS), the Highest Administrative Court in France, requesting the annulment of a decision by the French Data Protection Authority (CNIL), which imposed a penalty of EUR 100,000 (approximately USD 110,300) on Google. The case arises from a request to Google by a natural person for deletion of certain links from the list of results displayed following a search of his name (“request for de-referencing”). In response, Google refused to remove certain content from all versions of the domain name of its search engine (i.e., worldwide), leading to the penalty imposed by the CNIL. The FCS then made a request for preliminary reference to the CJEU for guidance on the interpretation of the “right of de-referencing”, popularly known as the “right to be forgotten”.

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has ruled that host providers, such as Facebook, can be required to take down illegal content, including identical or equivalent variations, worldwide once they are made aware of it. The Court was ruling on the interpretation of the E-Commerce Directive (Directive 2000/31/EC) in a defamation case brought by an Austrian politician. (Eva Glawischnig-Piesczek v. Facebook Ireland Limited, Case C-18/18 [ECLI:EU:C:2019:821].) The politician, Eva Glawischnig-Piesczek of the Green party, asked Facebook Ireland (which operates Facebook outside of the U.S. and Canada) to delete a news clipping and associated comment, which she claimed insulted and defamed her. Following court proceedings in Austria, Facebook Ireland disabled access in Austria to the specific content published. However, the case raised the following questions: could Facebook Ireland additionally be ordered to remove posts with identical or equivalent content to that already found to be illegal, and should it disable access to the illegal content worldwide?

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has ruled that an EU trade mark (EUTM) proprietor may bring an infringement action in an EU Member State where advertising or offers for sale are directed or located, in a case concerning alleged infringement of an EUTM in the United Kingdom by a Spanish defendant. The judgment in Case C172/18 AMS Neve Ltd, Barnett Waddingham Trustees, Mark Crabtree v Heritage Audio SL, Pedro Rodríguez Arribas addresses questions concerning jurisdiction, in particular in cases involving Internet sales. This litigation concerned infringement proceedings brought regarding an EUTM for “1073” in the UK Intellectual Property and Enterprise Court.