Trade mark law and the issues of parallel imports under Czech law

The thesis focuses on the concept of parallel imports in the Czech law in light of the judicature of the European Court of Justice. In the first part of the thesis, after a brief introduction to the Czech trademark law, the thesis seeks to define the individual competencies of trademark owners and their restrictions, with an emphasis on the concept of exhaustion of the rights towards the trademark. The second part of the thesis focuses exclusively on the concept of parallel imports within the European Union and the European Economic Area and their impact on the internal market. The issue of exhaustion of the ownerʼs rights towards the trademark, being closely related to parallel imports and without which parallel imports as such could not exist, represent a key part of the European Court of Justiceʼs rulings. The analysis of the rulings conducted in the thesis demonstrates that the possibilities of trademark owners to inhibit parallel imports are significantly limited and that the European Court of Justice tends to assign greater importance to protecting the internal market than to protecting the subjective rights of the trademark owners