CEDH · PRESS;GCJUDGMENTS;ENG — 11 janvier 2007

.s800EAC49 { font-size:12pt } .sFE10DC93 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:center } .s29100277 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold } .s40F41F73 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:right } .s32563E28 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt } .sBB9EE52A { font-family:Arial } .s7ED160F0 { text-decoration:none } .s653E6C45 { font-family:Arial; font-size:6.67pt; vertical-align:super; color:#0069d6 } .s4DDA3AA3 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; font-style:italic } .s76CF415B { page-break-before:always; clear:both } .sCB9E0544 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:left } .s4B8D41EE { font-family:Arial; font-size:10pt } .sADADF4A7 { font-family:Arial; text-decoration:underline } .sC7EAD8B { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; text-decoration:underline } .sA36B60A1 { font-family:Arial; font-style:italic } .sF6A12959 { width:33%; height:1px; text-align:left } .s2EB42ED2 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; font-size:10pt } EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS   017 11.1.2007   Press release issued by the Registrar   GRAND CHAMBER JUDGMENT ANHEUSER-BUSCH INC. v. PORTUGAL   The European Court of Human Rights has today delivered at a public hearing its Grand Chamber judgment [1] in the case of Anheuser-Busch Inc. v. Portugal (application no.   73049/01).   The Court held, by 15 votes to two, that there had been no violation of Article 1 of Protocol No.   1 (protection of property) to the European Convention on Human Rights. (The judgment is available in English and French.)   1.     Principal facts   The case concerns an application brought by an American public limited company, Anheuser-Busch Inc., whose registered office is in St Louis (Missouri, United States). It produces beer which it sells under the brand name “Budweiser” in a number of countries around the world.   In 1981 the applicant company applied to the Portuguese National Institute for Industrial Property (NIIP) to register “Budweiser” as a trade mark. The NIIP did not grant the application immediately because “Budweiser Bier” had already been registered as a appellation of origin on behalf of a Czechoslovak company, Budějovický Budvar. In 1989 the applicant company sought a court order setting aside the registration of that appellation, which was granted in 1995, and the NIIP subsequently registered the “Budweiser” trade mark.   The Czech company challenged that decision in the Lisbon Court of First Instance, relying on the so-called “1986 Agreement”, a bilateral treaty between Portugal and Czechoslovakia (now applicable in the Czech Republic) which came into force in 1987 and protected registered appellations of origin. The Court of First Instance found against the Czech company, but the Court of Appeal overturned that decision and ordered the NIIP to refuse to register “Budweiser” as a trade mark.   The applicant company appealed to the Supreme Court, which dismissed the appeal in 2001, holding that the appellation of origin “Českobudějovický Budvar”, which translated into German as “Budweis” or “Budweiss”, was protected by the 1986 Agreement. The registration of “Budweiser” as a trade mark on behalf of the applicant company was therefore set aside.   2.     Procedure and composition of the Court   The application was lodged with the Court on 23 July 2001.   Following a Chamber hearing at the Human Rights Building, Strasbourg, on 11 January 2005, the application was declared admissible.   In its Chamber judgment of 11 October 2005 the Court held by five votes to two that there had been no violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention.   At the request of the applicant company, the case was referred to the Grand Chamber (Article   43 [2] of the Convention and Rule   73 of the Rules of Court). A Grand Chamber hearing took place in public at the Human Rights Building, Strasbourg, on 28 June 2006.   Judgment was given by the Grand Chamber of 17 judges, composed as follows:   Luzius Wildhaber (Swiss), President , Christos Rozakis (Greek), Nicolas Bratza (British), Boštjan M. Zupančič (Slovenian), Peer Lorenzen (Danish), Lucius Caflisch [3] (Swiss), Loukis Loucaides (Cypriot) Ireneu Cabral Barreto (Portuguese), Corneliu Bîrsan (Romanian), Josep Casadevall (Andorran), Rait Maruste (Estonian), Elisabeth Steiner (Austrian), Stanislav Pavlovschi (Moldovan), Lech Garlicki (Polish), Khanlar Hajiyev (Azerbaijani), David Thór Björgvinsson (Icelandic), Dragoljub Popović (Serbian), judges , and also Erik Fribergh , Registrar .   3.     Summary of the judgment [4]   Complaint   Relying on Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention, the applicant company complained that the application of the 1986 Agreement, which had come into force after it had applied for registration of the “Budweiser” trade mark, had infringed its right to the peaceful enjoyment of its possessions. It argued that under international law the right to protection of a trade mark was secured from the date on which the application to register it was made and that it had been deprived of that right without receiving any compensation, despite the fact that there had been no public-interest grounds to justify affording protection to a registered appellation of origin on the basis of the treaty between Portugal and Czechoslovakia.   Decision of the Court   Article 1 of Protocol No. 1   The Court observed at the outset that intellectual property as such enjoyed the protection of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1. That provision was also applicable to applications for the registration of trade mark, including the application in the case before it in which the applicant company held a bundle of proprietary rights that were recognised by Portuguese law, despite the fact that they were revocable under certain conditions.   The question before the Court, therefore, was whether the decision to apply the provisions of the bilateral agreement of 1986 to an application for registration of a mark that had been filed in 1981 could amount to interference with the applicant company’s right to the peaceful enjoyment of its possessions. The Court noted that the applicant company’s main complaint was about the manner in which the domestic law had been applied by the national courts. In that connection, it reiterated that its function was not to take the place of the national courts, but to ensure that their decisions were not flawed by arbitrariness or otherwise manifestly unreasonable.   In the absence of any arbitrariness or manifest unreasonableness, the Court could not call into question either the findings of the Supreme Court in its judgment of 23 January 2001 or that court’s interpretation of the bilateral agreement. Confronted with the conflicting arguments of two private parties concerning the right to use the name “Budweiser” as a trade mark or appellation of origin, the Supreme Court had reached its decision on the basis of the material it considered relevant and sufficient for the resolution of the dispute, after hearing representations from the interested parties.   Accordingly, the Court concluded that the Supreme Court’s judgment did not constitute interference with the applicant company’s right to the peaceful enjoyment of its possessions and that there had therefore been no violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1.     Judges Steiner and Hajiyev expressed a joint concurring opinion, and Judges Caflisch and Cabral Barreto expressed a joint dissenting opinion. These are annexed to the judgment.   ***   The Court’s judgments are accessible on its Internet site ( http://www.echr.coe.int ).   Press contacts Emma Hellyer (telephone: 00 33 (0)3 90 21 42 15) Stéphanie Klein (telephone: 00 33 (0)3 88 41 21 54) Beverley Jacobs (telephone: 00 33 (0)3 90 21 54 21)   The European Court of Human Rights was set up in Strasbourg by the Council of Europe Member States in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights.     [1] Grand Chamber judgments are final (Article 44 of the Convention). [2] Under Article 43 of the European Convention on Human Rights, within three months from the date of a Chamber judgment, any party to the case may, in exceptional cases, request that the case be referred to the 17 ‑ member Grand Chamber of the Court. In that event, a panel of five judges considers whether the case raises a serious question affecting the interpretation or application of the Convention or its protocols, or a serious issue of general importance, in which case the Grand Chamber will deliver a final judgment. If no such question or issue arises, the panel will reject the request, at which point the judgment becomes final. Otherwise Chamber judgments become final on the expiry of the three-month period or earlier if the parties declare that they do not intend to make a request to refer. [3] Judge elected in respect of Liechtenstein. [4] This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.