A genuinely European account of trade mark law

Abstract

The third edition of Spyros Maniatis’ book on European trade mark law has, in ascending order of importance, a new publisher, a new title, two new co-authors and content which has been restructured as well as updated. The new publisher is Oxford University Press, which is to be congratulated for producing a handsome volume (albeit about 250g heavier, despite having fewer pages, due to a larger format). The new title, Trade Mark Law in Europe, is only subtly different to the old, Trade Marks in Europe: A Practical Jurisprudence, but nevertheless more accurately reflects the content. As for the authorship, the first edition in 2006 was a solo effort by Professor Maniatis, who is now Professor of Intellectual Property and Director of the Centre for Commercial Law Studies at Queen Mary University of London. For the second edition in 2009, he was joined by Dimitris Botis, who is now Deputy Director for Legal Affairs of the European Union Intellectual Property Office (formerly the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market, Trade Marks and Designs) and the foreword was contributed by Alexander von Mühlendahl, who was Vice-President of OHIM from 1994 to 2005 and is now an attorney at Bardehle Pagenberg and a Visiting Professor at CCLS. For this edition the authors are joined by Dr von Mühlendahl and Imogen Wiseman of Cleveland. This time, Geoffrey Hobbs QC has contributed a penetrating foreword which is worth reading in its own right. Who knows, perhaps Mr Hobbs can be persuaded to join the team for the next edition? For there is little doubt that the task of writing a book on European trade mark law is now a very demanding one, which is why the authorial team has already quadrupled since the first edition.