On 6 November at the Interbrand head offices, the Leading Brands of Spain Association (AMRE) organised a round table on “European brands and the EU, legal protection and combating piracy”. The event was supported by the Secretary of State for the EU and sponsored by Garrigues and Interbrand. The debate was moderated by Soledad Rodríguez, Managing Director of the Brand Defense Association (ANDEMA) and involved Silvia Navares, head of the Area of International Cooperation and Relations with the Courts of the SPTO; Ignacio de Medrano, Deputy Director of Institutional Affairs and External Relations Department of OHIM; Gonzalo Brujó, CEO of Interbrand Spain; Adela Lario, Director of Legal Services for the Osborne Group; and Joao Miranda, head of the Industrial Property Department of Garrigues. The debate was published in a double-page article in the financial newspaper Expansion on 26 November.
The discussion focused on the importance of strengthening the legal protection of European brands, at European institutional level, from the growing threat of piracy and counterfeiting, both within and outside of the EU. Brands are key for the competitiveness of European businesses and must be promoted and also stringently protected by the authorities and European legislation. Leading European brands in particular need stronger legal protection, since they are the powerhouses of the European business network and of the image of European products and services. This need has already been recognised in Spanish legislation through Law 17/2001 of 7 December, but such measures are still pending in Community legislation. The participants advocated the importance of promoting a special legal and tax regime for leading European brands.
The topics covered included policies to defend the EU from piracy in non-member states, the protection of leading brands and notaries in the EU, the threats that European brands are facing in the EU and the recent creation of the Brands Observatory as a Private-Public Initiative. This initiative generated most interest during the meeting. The participants emphasised the suitability of the initiative as a forum for analysing the intellectual property situation in Europe and as a meeting point for public and private initiatives in order to implement a common policy on trademarks within the EU and, above all, to reach a consensus on uniform responses in the various member states.
During the meeting it was also highlighted that Spain has one of the most advanced laws in the field of brand protection, making special reference to the brand law of 2001 that gives special legal protection to leading and well-known brands, and which is more stringent than the laws in other European countries. Some participants asserted that 2009 was “the year of the leading brand” since several rulings were made by the Court of Justice of the European Communities that extended the legal protection given to a leading brand in a given state to the other EU member countries.
