Judgment — ECLI:EU:C:2018:639
Date: 2018-08-07
Language of the case: Estonian
Court formation: Third Chamber
Subject matter: Right of establishment;Intellectual, industrial and commercial property;Consumer protection;Approximation of laws;Freedom to provide services
Procedure: Reference for a preliminary ruling
Origin: Estonia

Summary — Judgment of the Court (Third Chamber), 7 August 2018 1. Approximation of laws — Enforcement of intellectual property rights — Directive 2004/48 — Measures, procedures and remedies — Persons who have legal standing — Body collectively representing trade mark proprietors — Included — Conditions (European Parliament and Council Directive 2004/48, Art. 4(c)) 2. Approximation of laws — Electronic commerce — Directive 2000/31 — Liability of intermediary service providers — Exemptions for transmission, storage and hosting activities — Applicability to a service provider providing an IP address rental and registration service allowing the anonymous use of internet domain names — Conditions (European Parliament and Council Directive 2000/31, Arts 12 to 14) 1. Article 4(c) of Directive 2004/48/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 2004 on the enforcement of intellectual property rights must be interpreted as meaning that the Member States are required to recognise a body collectively representing trade mark proprietors, such as that at issue in the case in the main proceedings, as a person entitled to seek, in its own name, the application of the remedies laid down by that directive, for the purpose of defending the rights of those trade mark proprietors, and to bring legal proceedings, in its own name, for the purpose of enforcing those rights, on condition that that body is regarded by national law as having a direct interest in the defence of such rights and that that law allows it to bring legal proceedings to that end, these being matters for the referring court to verify. (see para. 39, operative part 1) 2. Articles 12 to 14 of Directive 2000/31/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 8 June 2000 on certain legal aspects of information society services, in particular electronic commerce, in the Internal Market (‘Directive on electronic commerce’) must be interpreted as meaning that the limitations of liability for which they provide apply to the provider of an IP address rental and registration service allowing the anonymous use of internet domain names, such as that at issue in the case in the main proceedings, inasmuch as that service comes within the scope of one of the categories of service referred to in those articles and meets all the corresponding conditions, in so far as the activity of such a service provider is of a merely technical, automatic and passive nature, implying that he has neither knowledge of nor control over the information transmitted or cached by his customers, and in so far as he does not play an active role in allowing those customers to optimise their online sales activity, these being matters for the referring court to verify. (see para. 52, operative part 2)