The next Mobile World Congress (MWC) event, the world's largest and most important event in the mobile communications industry, will be held in Barcelona from 28 February 2022 to 3 March 2022.
Foreseeing the possible conflicts that may exist between the companies participating in the event, the panel of judges of the commercial courts of Barcelona, for the eighth consecutive year, together with the panel of judges of the EU Trademark Court of Alicante, for the fourth time, agreed at their joint meeting on 10 January 2022 to adopt a Protocol of Guard Service and Fast Action. The protocol contains effective measures to protect technology patents, industrial designs, trademarks and copyrights against infringing acts and against acts of unfair competition, competition law and unlawful advertising in relation to products and materials on display at the MWC.
During February 2022 and the days of the event, the following measures have been put in place:
- There will be priority and preferential processing of preliminary procedures and/or inquiries to substantiate facts for the products and materials displayed at the event.
- There will be priority and preferential processing of urgent interim injunctions (either ex parte or not) for the products and materials displayed at the event.
- Any preliminary procedures, inquiries to substantiate facts and ex parte interim injunctions must be resolved within two days. Any interim injunctions must be resolved within 10 days in the event of a hearing, as long as a protective letter has been filed.
- The admission of a request for protective letters must be resolved on the same day as its presentation. Such admission and immediate resolution avoids the adoption of ex parte preliminary injunctions, allowing the defendant to put forward their arguments and express their willingness to appear at court immediately where a request for an ex parte interim injunction is filed.
- In order to assess the urgency of such ex parte interim injunctions, the claimant's prior conduct and the speed with which they reacted to the knowledge of the infringement will be determining factors. It will be assessed, whenever possible, whether the injunction was filed with such notice that, in good faith, it would not impede the hearing of the defendant.
- Any specific necessary measures to preserve the confidentiality of information that may constitute a trade secret will be adopted, either ex officio or at the request of a party, if such information has been provided in proceedings regarding the violation of trade secrets or in another kind of procedure in which the consideration of such information is necessary to resolve it on the merits.
- The commercial courts of Barcelona will immediately enforce any interim injunctions and/or urgent measures ruled by the EU Trademark Court of Alicante in the scope of its specific competence in EU trademarks and community designs.
Because of the covid-19 pandemic, in order to ensure health and safety, the following has been agreed:
- Preliminary injunctions and/or urgent measures filed may include acts on site, online and/or on any type of virtual platform provided by the MWC.
- Virtual hearings of the defendant will be held where interim injunctions are filed.
For further information on this topic please contact Alejandro Angulo, Jesús Arribas or Ignacio Marqués at Grau & Angulo by telephone (+34 93 202 34 56) or email ([email protected], [email protected] or [email protected]). The Grau & Angulo website can be accessed at www.ga-ip.com.