Chillin'Competition

Note by Alfonso: The Court of Justice has published yesterday its long-awaited decision in UsedSoft v. Oracle. Even though the matters are issue are mainly IP-related (they concern the application of the so-called  “exhaustion doctrine” to computer programs), they have important competition law implications. Marcos Araujo  (a friend of ours and a partner at Garrigues) has followed closely this case as well all others concerning the intersection of IP and competition law. We’ve asked him to provide us with his first views on this very fresh Judgment. Here they are:

In a Grand Chamber judgment, the ECJ has taken a determined stance in favour of THE free movement of goods and the exhaustion doctrine. Today’s Judgment has dismissed not only Oracle’s arguments, but also those raised by the Commission and by the various intervening Member States, and has affirmed vigorously the right of licence holders to “resell” their rights of use of computer programs, supporting intermediaries and end customers in the way.

The case had attracted much attention given the contradictions in this area of European Law, which on the one hand declares that the sale of computer programs exhausts the rights of the owner (art. 4.2 of Directive 2009/24) and therefore that the program can freely be re-sold, and, on the other hand, states that the provision of services over the Internet does not cause exhaustion of rights (Recital 29, Directive 2001/29). In this situation, software companies which license (and arguably do not “sell”) software over the internet may claim that their IP rights should not be deemed to become “exhausted”, as they would be providing a service rather than selling a product.

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