France: CJEU issues decision on reconditioning by parallel importers

Managing IP is part of Legal Benchmarking Limited, 1-2 Paris Gardens, London, SE1 8ND

Copyright © Legal Benchmarking Limited and its affiliated companies 2025

Accessibility | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Modern Slavery Statement

France: CJEU issues decision on reconditioning by parallel importers

Sponsored by

beau-de-lomenie.png

Jurisprudence has had fixed rules for a long time on the reconditioning of pharmaceutical products by parallel importers, without the consent of the trade mark owner.

The reconditioning must not affect the original condition of the product. The presentation of the product must not harm the image of the brand and its proprietor. If there is new packaging, it must clearly indicate the person who carried out the reconditioning and the product. Finally, the importer must notify the trade mark owner of the future sale and provide him with, on request, a specimen of the reconditioning.

These conditions allow the trade mark owner to maintain some control over the distribution of his products by parallel importers.

New opportunities for the parallel market are now offered by a decision recently rendered by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) (decision of the CJEU, May 17 2018 C-642/06).

In this case, the parallel importer added a new label on the pharmaceuticals to permit their importation. The trade mark owner opposed this commercialisation insofar as the importer failed to inform him about this reimport and the new packaging adopted.

The Court noted that in all cases until then the reconditioning had required the opening of the original packaging. Here, the packaging had not been modified, nor the original presentation affected.

The Court made the following points:

(i) the importer had limited himself to affixing an additional label on an unprinted part of the packaging, which had not been opened;

(ii) this label was small and included only the name of the parallel importer, its address and telephone number, a barcode and a pharmacological number.

As a result, affixing such a label did not contravene the trade mark holder's rights, and the parallel importer was not obliged to inform the trade mark holder of his action.

marie.jpg

Aurélia Marie

Cabinet Beau de Loménie

158, rue de l’Université

F - 75340 Paris Cedex 07 France

Tel: +33 1 44 18 89 00

Fax: +33 1 44 18 04 23

contact@bdl-ip.com

www.bdl-ip.com

more from across site and SHARED ros bottom lb

More from across our site

Bradford Newman, who has joined the firm’s new Silicon Valley office as head of complex technology disputes, discusses plans to build the practice group and attract local talent
Managing IP summarises the highlights from the IP STARS rankings for copyright and IP transactions work, the final firm rankings release of the year
Developments included the first judgment from the Nordic Baltic division, an injunction covering the UK, and a new code of conduct
Alston & Bird acted for InterDigital, while Samsung was represented by Fish & Richardson, during the arbitration process
Powell Gilbert lawyers reveal how they navigated parallel EPO proceedings and collaborated with European peers to come out on top in the Nordic-Baltic Division’s first judgment
The firms posted increases in revenue and profit per equity partner, with both giving a nod to their IP expertise
EasyGroup, the owner of the easyJet airline, said in a press release that UK-based first-instance judges are “less experienced”, bringing a long-running debate back to the fore
A cross-practice team from Mayer Brown, which included members of the firm’s IP practice, advised on the deal
María Cecilia Romoleroux discusses the challenges she has faced in her career in IP and how she hopes to improve things for the next generation of women
Value-added services give in-house counsel the satisfaction that they are getting more value for money, while law firms get the opportunity to win more work
Gift this article