Smelling of roses: Hungary confirms position on trademark rights in perfume case

01-12-2011

Judit Lantos

Smelling of roses: Hungary confirms position on trademark rights in perfume case

A recent Metropolitan Court decision has touched on the questions of jurisdiction of community trademark law, exhaustion of rights, the distribution of testers and selective distribution of luxury perfume brands.

The case concerns some Issey Miyake and Narciso Rodriguez 3-dimensional perfume glasses and perfume packages in Hungary, and the infringement was committed by a Czech Internet distributor company operating in several middle-Eastern European countries.

The plaintiff is a subsidiary of a group producing luxury perfume products, and holds trademarks for a box and bottle for ‘Issey Miyake Paris L’eau D’issey’, and the Narciso Rodriguez perfume bottle.

The plaintiff became aware that a Czech company was offering Narciso Rodriguez and Issey Miyake products and testers on the website ‘iparfumeria. hu’. It also operated similar websites in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland. A test-purchase demonstrated that the original products were imported to Hungary from Saudi Arabia and Puerto Rico.


Hungary, luxury brands

WIPR