Parfumes and exhaustion of rights in Austria

The Supreme Court in Austria ruled in a lawsuit that had been initiated by Davidoff against a trading company in the country which was selling original perfumes branded with trademarks  Davidoff – word and combined. According to Davidoff this could lead to a consumer misleading that this company is part if its distributional channel, taking into account that the company put the trademarks on its website.

According to the court, however, there is no breach of law in the case at hand because the trademark use was only for information purposes and it is in accordance with the legislation on trademark exhaustion, in particular:

A mark shall not entitle the proprietor to prohibit its use in relation to goods which have been put on the market in the Community under that trade mark by the proprietor or with his consent.

Source: Taylor Wessing, Lexology.