BUDWEISER: European Court of Human Rights confirms that trade marks are property within ECHR

A relief for IP owners who've been at least trying to argue for some time that they have a human right to enjoy their IP rights within article 1, Protocol 1 European Convention on Human Rights - and interesting to see this confirmed, without question, by a human rights forum, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).

On the point in issue, however, Anheuser-Busch Inc lost. The case concerned long running battles between US (Anheuser-Busch) and Czech (Budejovicky Budvar) companies in respect of the name "Budweiser". Here, the US company had filed a trade mark application in Portugal, before a treaty was entered into by Portugal and Czechoslovakia protecting designations of origin - including the Czech "Budweiser Bier". Under the treaty, the Czech company (and not the US company) would have rights to the name in Portugal.

After many decisions in different courts, helpfully set out in the linked press release of the Chamber judgment (judgment itself only in French so I look forward to refreshing skills on that), the US company's application for "Budweiser" was ultimately ordered to be rejected.

When the matter went before the ECtHr, it held that until a trade mark application was registered, and post grant opposition possiblities excluded, the US company could not be sure that it would in fact have a trade mark. As such, it had no possession, or legitimate expectation of such, which could be protected under Article 1, Protocol 1 ECHR in respect of the operation of the 1986 treaty.

All in all, I don't think very surprising - but a useful base for further challenges involving IP and human rights in the ECtHR - Article 2 v Article 1, Protocol 1 anyone?