Keywords
Summary

Keywords

1. Free movement of goods — Quantitative restrictions — Measures having equivalent effect — Articles 28 EC to 30 EC — Scope — Goods in transit through a Member State and intended for a non-member country — Included — (Arts 28 EC to 30 EC)

2. Free movement of goods — Quantitative restrictions — Measures having equivalent effect — National legislation providing for a procedure for detention by the customs authorities, at the time of intra-Community transit, of goods suspected of infringement of trade mark, lawfully manufactured in a Member State and intended for a non-member country — Justification — Protection of industrial and commercial property — None — Transit not forming part of the specific subject-matter of the trade marks — (Arts 28 EC and 30 EC)

Summary

1. Goods lawfully manufactured in one Member State in transit within another Member State come within the scope of Articles 28 EC to 30 EC even if they are intended for a non-member country. The Customs Union established by the Treaty necessarily implies that the free movement of goods between Member States should be ensured. That freedom could not itself be complete if it were possible for Member States to impede or interfere in any way with the movement of goods in transit so that it is necessary, as a consequence of the Customs Union and in the mutual interest of the Member States, to acknowledge the existence of a general principle of freedom of transit of goods within the Community.

see para. 18, 20

2. Article 28 EC is to be interpreted as precluding the implementation, by the customs authorities of a Member State, pursuant to a legislative measure of that Member State concerning intellectual property and on the ground of suspected infringement of trade mark, of procedures for detention of goods lawfully manufactured in another Member State and intended, following their transit through the territory of the first Member State, to be placed on the market in a non-member country.

A measure of detention under customs control which delays the movement of goods and may block their movement completely, has the effect of restricting the free movement of goods and therefore constitutes an obstacle to that freedom.

Such a measure cannot be justified on the ground of protection of industrial and commercial property within the meaning of Article 30 EC since that transit does not involve any marketing of the goods in question and is therefore not liable to infringe the specific subject-matter of the trade mark.

see paras 21, 24, 27, 29-30, operative part