| In Principle

People applying for the division of real estate are often requested to supplement the application with a permit for location of a driveway, in order to prove the existence of direct access to a public road. But is the authority’s request legally justified?

Do circumstances such as placing an advertisement for sale of real estate on an auction site or increasing the value of the land by partitioning it into smaller plots, adding utility connections, or establishing easements always indicate that the seller acts as a business and the transaction is subject to VAT, not the tax on civil-law transactions?

Under proposed changes, the procedure for liquidation of branches of foreign undertakings would become easier and would also comply with EU law. Thus after several years of uncertainty and disagreement on this topic, Polish law should return to the position approved by the Supreme Court in 2007.

We devote today’s edition entirely to the cosmetics and perfumes industry, and to the intellectual property protection phenomena and processes specific to that industry.

The cosmetics industry remains one of those industries where the role of innovation cannot be overestimated. Patent law makes it possible to monopolize innovative solutions and ensure their unimpeded exploitation.

The original, unique, scent is one of the most important features of luxury perfumes and its composition is usually a closely guarded secret. Paradoxically, however, granting legal protection to a scent is extremely difficult. Indeed, this issue has not been resolved in the decisions of the Polish Patent Office or Polish common courts.

On the Polish market of cosmetics and perfumes we will find both global producers and Polish brands. The latter are getting better and better. The cosmetics market in Poland doesn’t stop to grow. That growth has been particularly dynamic in recent years. Competition is also intensifying. It can lead to an increase in the number of court litigation cases related to intellectual property rights. Below we indicate what in our experience has been the most common subject of disputes among industry players.

Can an authorized retailer be prohibited from selling online or on a third-party online platform?

In order to bring the perpetrator to criminal liability for trade in counterfeits, it is first necessary to determine whether the traded goods are counterfeited, i.e. whether they bear a counterfeit trademark. Can we speak about a counterfeit trademark only if it is identical to a registered trademark? Well, no. A counterfeit trademark may also be a mark slightly different from the registered one, i.e. a mark that is confusingly similar.

The cosmetics market is growing and with it the number of different trademarks reported for this type of products. Therefore, conflicts between trademark registrations are inevitable. Their assessment is essentially the result of an assessment of the similarity of the compared goods and the similarity of the compared trademarks.

The Court of Justice has ruled that under the EU principle of freedom of establishment, transfer of the registered office of a Polish company abroad within the European Economic Area cannot be conditioned on conducting liquidation of the company in Poland.

In common-law jurisdictions, the trust is a popular form for achieving various aims: managing assets, inheritance, building corporate structures, and tax planning. But countries from the Continental legal tradition, like Poland, typically do not have any institution directly corresponding to a trust. Polish doesn’t even have a word for it. This has raised doubts over the years and sometimes even suspicion on the part of courts and lawyers when they need to determine the consequences exerted by a trust in actual or potential disputes in jurisdictions unfamiliar with this form. Are their suspicions well-founded?