Trademark law has been harmonised to a very high level in the European Union. Still, we have to deal with national trademarks and Community trademarks which exist side by side. Having two seperate systems leads to frictions between harmonised and Community trademark law.

Many of the issues that we are currently faced with are discussed in the inaugual lecture of Tobias Cohen Jehoram, presented on 13 January 2011, accepting his position as Professor of Intellectual Property Law at the Erasmus...