Lydian Webinar: "Booming of second-hand market : What about your IP rights protection?"

The second-hand market has been booming over recent years, fuelled by the economy, ethical and environmental reasons and the ease of online purchases. Ranging from automotive to luxury watches, from clothing to furniture or software, the growth of resale and reuse trend was accelerated in 2020 by COVID-19. 

Such trend raises of course a number of questions for IP right holders in terms of protection of their exclusive intellectual assets: 

• As creator of an original watch or furniture can I oppose to the resale of my goods based on copyright protection? Can I invoke a breach of my patrimonial or moral rights in case of modification or recreation of original products? 
• As trademark owner, can I prevent an independent reseller or repairer to reproduce my trademarks, logo on its website or on its promotional material in view of reselling or repairing my goods outside my authorised network?
• As software developer, could I prohibit the sale of second-hand software licenses ?

Our interactive webinar, held in English, addressed such questions based on our recent experiences. Our panel of speakers guided you through the key principles of IP legislation such as the exhaustion principle mitigated by its exceptions of course and how they are interpreted and applied by EU and Belgian Courts.

This webinar took place on 30 March 2021.