Category Archives: European Private Law
‘Remedies to Digital Vulnerability in European Private Law’: University of Trieste, 10-11 April 2025
The Trieste conference follows two previous conferences held within the same project in Ferrara (2023) and in Rome Tor Vergata (2024), which examined the legal status of digital vulnerability in European private law and its interaction with artificial intelligence, respectively. Building on the previous findings and starting from the assumption that many, if not all, […]
‘Design and copyright law must not be confused: the CJEU referral in C-323/24’
The Committee for Design Law (‘GRUR Committee’) of the German Association for Intellectual Property Law (GRUR) has recently submitted its comments on the request for a preliminary ruling made by the Juzgado de lo Mercantil Número 1 de Alicante, Spain (‘referring Court’), concerning the interpretation of Articles 6 and 14 of Regulation 6/2002 (‘CDR’) … […]
Sjef van Erp, ‘Triangles of Property Law’
ABSTRACT From a comparative viewpoint, property law has a double triangular shape. The first triangle is subject, object and right; the second triangle is numerus clausus, transparency and hierarchy. These two triangles are so strong that any attempt to fit in a new object of property law, such as digital assets, is met with resistance. […]
‘Is Pastiche an Autonomous Concept of EU Copyright Law? Hearing of Pelham II in the CJEU’
On 14 January 2025, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) heard oral arguments in the much-anticipated case C-590/23 Pelham II, where the German Federal Court submitted a request for preliminary ruling on the interpretation of ‘pastiche’. The purpose was to ascertain whether a two-second sample from a phonogram could fall under the […]
Baha Yiğit Sayın, ‘Negotiorum Gestio as a Source of Obligation: From Roman Law to Modern Codes’
ABSTRACT The legal institution of Negotiorum Gestio refers first and foremost to the act of helping or aiding someone in need, typically with the intention of doing good or promoting the well-being of the recipient. This concept has a long history, with roots in Roman law and its diversified influence on modern legal systems. In […]
Chang and Merrill, ‘The Nature of Leasing’
ABSTRACT Leases at the common law are said to be a property form becoming increasingly contractual, while leases in the civil law are said to be a type of contract becoming ‘reified’ and hence increasingly like property. Leases in the common and civil law worlds thus begin with very different starting points but, over time, […]
Ratiu Flavia Simona Petridean, ‘The Pre-Contractual Abyss’
ABSTRACT In spite of the conservative spirits, positioned by themselves, in the traditional and classical scheme of how contracts are formed, the realities of the Romanian private law space, show us that often the formation of a convention is progressive from the volitional point of view. The potential of some definitive contractual relations commits the […]
‘The benefits and pitfalls of drug manufacturing IP (T 2543/22)’
The Board of Appeal decision in T 2543/22 relates to a manufacturing method for preparing a therapeutic peptide. The Board of Appeal found that whilst various methods were known, the skilled person would not have had a reasonable expectation of success in applying them to produce the specific claimed peptide. The case highlights some interesting […]
‘Price calculation indications in online offers: Misleading or not? CJEU in NEW Niederrhein Energie und Wasser (Case C‑518/23)’
On 23 January, the CJEU provided further clarity on what amounts to a misleading omission in an invitation to purchase under the UCPD (Case C‑518/23). The case concerns an online electricity tariff calculator operated by the German company NEW Niederrhein Energie und Wasser. Based on customer input, the calculator generates a tariff offer that the […]
Michael FitzGerald, ‘Not hollowed by a Delphic frenzy: European intermediary liability from the perspective of a bad man: A response to Martin Husovec et al’
ABSTRACT This article proposes a revisionary interpretation of a decade of European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) jurisprudence on online intermediary liability. This interpretation is produced by applying methodological insights from classical legal realist scholars including from Karl Llewellyn and Oliver Wendell Holmes. This article applies Holmes’s famous heuristic device of the ‘bad man’ to […]