On 21 and 22 May 2026, attorney-at-law Krasimira Kadieva attended online the sixth IP Case Law Conference, organised by the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO). The hybrid conference took place at the EUIPO headquarters in Alicante and online under the forward-looking theme “Growing through change”, focusing on recent developments in European case law concerning trade marks, designs and intellectual property enforcement.
The event brought together judges from the General Court and the Court of Justice of the European Union, members of the EUIPO Boards of Appeal, representatives of national intellectual property offices, private practitioners and in-house counsel from international companies. The conference was opened by EUIPO Executive Director João Negrão, Vice-President of the General Court Savvas S. Papasavvas, President of the German Patent and Trade Mark Office Eva Schewior and President of the EUIPO Boards of Appeal Sven Stürmann.
The first day addressed emerging issues in EU trade mark adjudication. The presentations examined the assessment of marks written in scripts other than Latin and Cyrillic, the growing importance of creating subcategories of goods and services, the influence of graphic elements in disputes involving weak marks, and the relationship between a trade mark’s reputation and its inherent distinctiveness. A separate panel explored the reform of EU design law, including the exception for modular systems, disclosure requirements, spare-part issues and recent decisions of the EUIPO Boards of Appeal.
A highly practical part of the programme focused on proving genuine use of EU trade marks. Speakers discussed when the use of a mark in an altered form may be accepted, how evidence should be assessed, the potential pitfalls associated with digital evidence and the territorial boundaries of genuine use within and outside the European Union. A comparative session on iconic and famous marks also examined how reputation, similarity, dilution and unfair advantage are approached in the European Union, China, Japan, South Korea and the United States.
The second day included an analysis of the admission filter for further appeals before the Court of Justice and a dedicated discussion on case law in the age of artificial intelligence. The panellists considered the impact of AI on legal research and on the predictability, coherence and consistency of decision-making. Further presentations explored the interaction between trade mark registration and infringement proceedings, including abuse of process, upcycling and exhaustion of rights, interim measures, take-down notices and the liability of online platforms.
The closing sessions addressed geographical indications, company and trade names, titles of works, domain names, personality rights and the role of copyright in trade mark and design disputes. Krasimira Kadieva’s online attendance at the conference forms part of her continuing commitment to following the latest European case law and providing clients with up-to-date, practical and strategically focused advice in the field of intellectual property.