Court of Justice on the concept of “use” of a trademark

On July 2, 2020 the EU Court of Justice (Case C-684/19) has ruled on the concept of “use” of a trademark under Article 5(1) of Directive 2008/95/EC. The Court restated its view according to which trademark “use”’ involves active conduct and direct or indirect control of the act constituting the use. So that a person cannot be considered as “using” a mark on the sole ground that such use is capable of providing him/her financial benefit. Accordingly, the fact that other operators reproduce an advertisement bearing an infringing trademark by placing it online, on their own initiative and in their own name, is not “use” of the infringing trademark by the person that has originally arranged for the infringing content.