Exhaustion of Rights and Parallel Importation in Trademarked Products

Intellectual property and competition law constitute two such fields that maintain interdependent yet conflicting roles. As is known, intellectual property rights protect artistic creativity, scientific progress, investment in business industry and in general, information and ideas worth of commercial exploitation by granting exclusive rights to their owners so that they can enjoy the fruits of their labour. Intellectual property rights, such as patents, trademarks or copyrights, are typically defined in terms of rights granted to holder to prevent others from making use of it. Therefore, intellectual property rights are also termed as negative rights. This leads to arising of many questions such as; (1) whether the exclusive right granted to an intellectual property right owner is absolute or it can be qualified by any limitation? (2) When can it be said that the intellectual property owner has exhausted his rights over that property? (3) What kind of protection is available to intellectual property owner when an intellectual property is resold? (4) What are the laws that govern such resale of property and what are the problems that the IP owner faces while exercising his rights and how these laws come in conflict with his rights? (5) How member states twist the laws in favour of the masses in general and the issues thereof? The purpose of this paper is to answer the above questions and understand the concepts of exhaustion of rights and parallel importation and their application to trademarked products in the European Union with the help of case law analysis.