Vlaams Belang

On September 8, the Court of Justice of the EU ruled in case C-298-23 that the owner of a well-known trademark, in this case IKEA, can prohibit its use by a political party unless the party sets out the specific reasons why its freedom of expression outweighs the trademark owner's interest.

The case arose from the Vlaams Belang Party 2022 campaign promoting a migration plan styled as an IKEA assembly instructions.

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Today's interview guest is Peter Berg.

The decision establishes that political expression can amount to due cause under EU trademark law, but only when the value of the expression outweighs the trademark owner's legitimate interests.

Belgian political party Vlaams Belang used branding and imagery closely resembling IKEA, the Swedish furniture company, in an immigration policy campaign.

IKEA sued, arguing that the campaign, called the IKEA Plan, infringed on its trademark rights.

The CJEU ultimately left the final decision to the Belgian court.

but signalled scepticism about Vlaams Belang's defence, saying that the immigration debate had no direct connection to IKEA, that the company's branding appeared to have been used primarily to amplify and disseminate the political message, and that members of the public could perceive an association between IKEA and the campaign.

A week after an ex-employee of Anthropic, one of the big AI developers, said that there was a 1 in 10 chance that AI would kill all humans in the next decade, minds turn understandably to questions of agency, independence, oversight and liability in relation to this fast-changing new technology.

At the moment, this might mean focusing attention on agentic AI, the growing trend for people to use AI systems to create computer programs that not only carry out tasks, but seem to make decisions about what tasks to set themselves in order to achieve a goal.

Under its new growth strategy, the retailer plans to open up to 10 new stores a year and is targeting mid- to high-single-digit sales growth.

In furniture and flooring, IKEA has won the right to pursue legal action against Belgian political party Vlaams Belang over its use of IKEA trademarks and branding in a 2022 immigration campaign.

The Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that trademark rights must be balanced against freedom of expression.

And, there were several updates across department stores, marketplaces and specialists, starting with financial results.