Exhaustion of the rights conferred by trade marks in the European Union

Abstract

The so-called exhaustion of the trademark right constitutes a limit to the exclusive right over the sign, inherent to the nature and function of the right. In other words, exhaustion means that the exclusive right - of “commercial exclusion” - of the trademark owner ends with the first marketing of the goods identified with the sign carried out by him or with his consent. At that point, the “reselling” of the goods becomes free trade, so that the trademark owner can no longer use his right to prohibit other operators from reselling under the trademark, unless, of course, there are legitimate reasons for this not to be the case. It is of great interest to analyse the current regime for trademarks in the European Union and to observe how this matter is highly topical in the light of issues such as the relabelling of medicines or the implications of Brexit.