IP competition conflicts in EU law through five judicial lenses

Defence date: 21 May 2018Examining Board: Prof. Giorgio Monti, EUI (EUI Supervisor) ; Prof. Urska Šadl, EUI ; Prof. Inge Govaere, College of Europe, Bruges ; Prof. Alison Jones, King's College, LondonThis PhD thesis deals with IP-competition conflicts and how the EU Courts have addressed them over time. It seeks to answer the question of how the reasoning of EU Courts in these cases has been affected by three crucial evolutionary moments in EU law: (1) the Europeanization of IP law (2) the modernization of EU competition law and (3) the elevation of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union to a primary source of EU law. The first two chapters provide the theoretical framework of the thesis. The first chapter provides a detailed overview of the three crucial evolutionary moments in EU law mentioned above. The second chapter provides an overview of theories about the legal reasoning of EU Courts and about the different approaches that the courts have adopted when deciding IP-competition conflicts. Five such approaches, or judicial lenses, are identified: an economics, a conflict of laws, a conflict of competences, a constitutional and a private law approach. It is shown that these five different approaches can be linked to the three evolutionary moments at the IP-competition interface in EU law. Chapters three to five trace the theoretical insights from the first two chapters in three case studies on specific business methods having given rise to IP-competition conflicts before EU Courts: (i) selective distribution systems, (ii) digital platforms and restrictions of access, and (iii) lock-in strategies on aftermarkets, in particular in the online environment. The case studies analyse how these comparable factual situations of IP-competition conflicts have been treated on the one hand under EU competition law and on the other under EU IP law. In each case study, the legal reasoning is identified and compared between EU competition and IP law. The main finding in the case studies is that EU Courts treat the spheres of EU competition law and IP law as wholly separate. This has led to quite diverging approaches in comparable cases of IP-competition conflicts depending on whether the cases are brought under EU competition law or IP law, jeopardizing the systemic coherence of EU law and disturbing the CJEU’s dialogue with national ii courts. This situation is not sustainable. In an economic environment where the EU’s economies are increasingly depending on e-commerce and digital assets often protected by IP, IP-competition conflicts are bound to increase. To ensure a legal environment that provides legal certainty and equal conditions for firms to thrive across EU Member States without hurting consumers, a more coherent and improved methodological guidance on how to address IP-competition conflicts is needed. The aim of this thesis is to provide a first step in this direction

Performance, Productivity and the Diversity of Student Pathways

Performance and productivity have become central goals in higher education reforms since the 1970s. The implications are more or less straightforward when it comes to teaching and research; academic staff should teach and publish more, while institutions should produce more graduates at a lower cost, and these graduates should quickly find a well-paid job that matches their field of study. However, while institutions and academic staff have adapted to these new forms of evaluation and funding, students seem to be less inclined to do so. It is problematic that within this equation, institutions and academics are the producers, while students are relegated to a role of products or, in the best-case scenario, clients. As products, they cannot be expected to comply with the productivity goals or the performance indicators of the institution. This article reviews how students behave and why they behave as they do, before considering the implications for productivity. The analysis focuses on Mexican higher education, but also highlights relevant results in other countries

How to stress-test EU policies: Building a more resilient Europe for tomorrow

Policy-makers are seeking to 'future proof' policies in order to be better prepared for disruptive and unanticipated events. The application of foresight methods such as stress-testing can help achieve this goal. This study introduces a methodology for the European Parliament to stress-test legislation. The method can be integrated into existing law-making and scrutiny processes in the European Parliament. It draws on lessons learnt and recommendations stemming from independent research that encompassed a comprehensive review of reports and research studies, and in-depth research on four countries (Finland, the Netherlands, New Zealand and the United Kingdom), as well as a pilot-test for three policy areas (robotics and artificial intelligence, information and consultation of workers, and competition policy – State aid). </p

Regulation through code as a safeguard for implementing smart contracts in no-trust environments

Smart contracts, self-executing agreements based on blockchain technology, are a hotly debated topic in the tech community, among policy makers, industry stakeholders and in academia. They offer the prospect of cheaper, faster and better transactions. The hype around smart contracts is also viewed with caution. We contribute to the existing academic literature by addressing some of the concerns about the legal nature, anonymity and reliability of smart contracts. Several contract law scholars argue that smart contracts cannot offer a superior solution to many problems addressed by traditional contract law, such as contract validity and legality. Furthermore, they argue that smart contracts cannot replicate the relational context which is essential for the day-to-day practice of contracting. In this contribution, we firstly draw a distinction between smart contracts based on public blockchains and those based on private or permissioned blockchains. While all existing contributions develop their arguments implicitly assuming that smart contracts are based on public blockchains, much commercial experimentation with smart contracts is occurring on permissioned blockchains. Importantly, many of the mentioned problems do not arise on permissioned blockchains. Secondly, we argue that there is a good reason to prefer public blockchains over permissioned blockchains for contracting, namely their capacity to create trust in otherwise no-trust contracting environments. This is the path to unleash the full potential of smart contracts. In contrast to critics, we argue that compared to traditional contract law, smart contracts potentially offer a superior solution for facilitating trade

Selective distribution systems in EU competition and EU trademark law : resolving the tension

Published: 13 March 201

Gig Platforms as Hub-and-Spoke Arrangements and Algorithmic Pricing: A Comparative EU-US Antitrust Analysis

Introduction Gig platforms are a modern economy enterprise structure characterized by a firm matching service providers with consumers – prominent examples include ride-sharing platforms, like Uber; delivery platforms, like Wolt; and lodging rental platforms, like Airbnb. As are all online platforms, gig platforms are data-driven business models that employ and develop algorithms and AI tools that learn from user behavior and adapt to make interactions increasingly efficient. In contrast to o..