The Legal 500

Following the implementation in the domestic law of the Trade related Aspects of Intellectual Property Treaty, the Romanian Unfair Competition Law defines the trade secret as an information which is not generally known or is not easily accessible to the people usually dealing with this kind of information, which derives economic value from the fact of being secret and for which the legitimate holder took the reasonable steps to keep it secret. Anything may be a secret of economic value: a process, an error to avoid, an invention, an idea, a discovery, a prognosis, a list of clients or suppliers, a strategy, the source-code of a software, a formula, a fact.

Romania has not yet acquired practical experience in terms of private antitrust litigation, although recent legislative developments (amendment of the Competition Law No. 21/1996 by the Government Emergency Ordinance No. 75/2010 in July 2010 and by the Law No. 149/2011 in July 2011, together with the new Civil Procedure Code, expected to come into force soon) support private actions for damages.

Under what legislation are intellectual property rights granted? Are there restrictions on how IP rights may be exercised, licensed or transferred? Do the rights exceed the minimum required by the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs)?

Specialist IP panels have been created in Bucharest and have developed solid case law, as they have exclusive jurisdiction over all trademark cancellation and revocation cases. Choosing the right forum can therefore be crucial.

While protection for well-known marks is in place, there are some contradictions in the treatment of fame

Author: Alina Popescu, Partner Musat & Asociatii

The European Court of Justice („ECJ”) has ruled on the case Klub OOD (C-153/11).

Government Emergency Ordinance 2/2012 amending and supplementing the Company Law 31/1990 was published in Official Gazette 143/2012

Order 247/2012 regarding the procedure for the application of article 52 of the Fiscal Code was published in Official Gazette 129/2012

Government Decision 50/2012 amending and completing the Methodological Norms for the application of the Fiscal Code was published in Official Gazette 78/2012

Government Ordinance 2/2012 amending and completing the Fiscal Procedure Code was published in Official Gazette 71/2012