Corporate policies of EU companies in the areas of trademark portfolio management and commercial distribution needed to be re-evaluated in the light of the fundamental innovation introduced in 1999 in the community market through the judgment delivered by a plenary session of the Court of Justice of the European Union in the Silhouette case.
In sum, the Court legitimated the opposition by European companies to parallel imports from countries outside the EU, forbidding each member State from introducing domestic legislation implementing the principle of "international exhaustion" with regard to the rights conferred by a trademark, which would allow anyone who has lawfully purchased a good from the brand owner or its licensee to re-import and to sell it in Europe.
