In its recent ruling about two conflicting DRACULA trade marks, the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) seems to have driven a stake through the heart of national provisions on forfeiture of rights. 

In its judgment of 1 August 2025 in Lunapark v Hardeco (C-452/24), the Court ruled that the EU Trademark Directive contains a complete harmonisation of acquiescence and there is no room for the additional application of principles of national law.

Dracula’s sweet tooth

The case concerns two Finnish companies, both marketing confectionery products under the name Dracula. In 2003, Lunapark filed a national application for the trade mark DRACULA, which was registered in 2009. Its competitor, Karkkimies was at that time already marketing Dracula sweets as well, but did not have any registered or unregistered rights in the sign.

Several years later, in 2020, Lunapark brought an infringement action against Hardeco, which had by that time taken over Karkkimies and was continuing the sales of the Dracula confectionery.

In first instance, the Finnish Market Court dismissed Lunapark’s claims based on the well-established principle of Finnish private law that an applicant must bring an action within a reasonable time following the date on which they became aware of the relevant circumstances.

The CJEU’s ruling

In a relatively short judgment, the CJEU firmly dismissed the application of such national principles of forfeiture of rights.

Referring to the leading case on acquiescence – Budějovický Budvar (C-482/09) – the Court held that Article 18(1) of the EU Trademark Directive fully harmonises the conditions under which a trade mark owner’s exclusive rights may be limited in the event of inactivity. That article only provides for acquiescence in respect of a later registered trade mark, and not in respect of an unprotected sign.

In the case of the Dracula sweets, acquiescence under Article 18(1) of the EU Trademark Directive therefore does not apply, since neither Karkkimies nor Hardeco had any registered rights in the Dracula name, as acknowledged by the referring Finnish Court. The CJEU nonetheless ruled that also in that context, the EU Trademark Directive precludes the applicability of a general principle of national law that prevents the trade mark owner from seeking a prohibition of the use of an infringing third party sign in a situation other than provided for in Article 18(1) EU Trademark Directive.

Key implications for trade mark law

Although the CJEU didn’t need many words to reach its decision, it is not difficult to imagine the Court having gone the other way. Since situations in which the later mark is unregistered are not covered by the EU Trademark Directive’s rules on acquiescence, the CJEU could well have ruled that such situations have been left to national law. 

Indeed, in Gautzsch (C-479/12), the CJEU previously ruled with respect to EU design rights that extinction of rights and the defence of an action being time-barred are governed by national law, as the Community Design Regulation is silent on these topics. Just like design law, Article 129 of the EU Trademark Regulation provides in much the same words that national law shall apply to all trade mark matters not covered by the Regulation. If national law is good enough for an EU design right (and by analogy an EU trade mark), then why not for a national trade mark? 

If national principles cannot be applied, forfeiture of rights appears to be out of the question in cases where the infringing sign has not been registered. After all, standard case law prescribes that the period of acquiescence provided for in EU trade mark law cannot start running until the allegedly infringing sign is registered (I Marchi Italiani (C-381/12)). This will have implications for many EU jurisdictions who equally acknowledge a general principle of forfeiture of rights as part of their private law.

However, the concrete implications of the judgment are somewhat unclear. Does the same conclusion apply if the defence is based on an abuse of law rather than forfeiture of rights? And how to deal with statutes of limitations? It must be assumed that these can still be applied based on national law. However, in effect these also create differences between the protection for registered trade marks throughout the Member States, which was a key consideration for the CJEU to preclude the application of national principles of forfeiture of rights.

In any case, the judgment emphasizes the importance of registering one’s trade mark in order to obtain legal certainty.

The CJEU’s judgement can be found here.