Case No. IP-2020-000081

The Law 109.The leading judgment of the CJEU on implied consent to the use of a trade mark is Zino Davidoff SA v A&G Imports Ltd (Joined Cases C-414/99, C-415/99 and C-416/99) EU:C:2001:617. The Court was dealing with a referred question about the exhaustion of rights in relation to goods placed on the market in the EEA and thus primarily art.7 of Directive 89/104/EEC. The equivalent of art.7 is s.12 of the 1994 Act, as amended by The Intellectual Property (Exhaustion of Rights) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019. Neither art.7 nor s.12 is concerned with service marks.110.The Defendants in the present case rely instead on the absence of consent as an essential ingredient of infringement, see s.9 of the 1994 Act:“