Düfte als geistiges Eigentum

It is not only perfume companies which are increasingly being confronted with imitations of their products and which demand exclusive rights of use for scents. Since the court rulings of the European Court of Justice have virtually excluded the protection of scents as trademarks, Stefan Fröhlich studies the various possibilities for protecting scents and perfumes in the other areas of intellectual property and by using the Unfair Competition Act. Based on a description of the scientific requirements for a legal evaluation, the author does a systematic analysis of the prerequisites for and the content of protection by copyright, industrial design law, the patent law, the utility model law and the Unfair Competition Act. In doing so, he deals with the relevant French and Dutch judicature as well as the advantages and disadvantages of the various industrial property rights for scents.