IP Osgoode Speaks – Too Much of a Good Thing? Overlapping Intellectual Property Rights in the EU

Join us for the first ‘IP Osgoode Speaks’ event of the 2026-27 year! Our guest speaker will be Dr. Marc Mimler, Senior Lecturer at the City Law School, London University.

Speaker:
Dr. Marc Mimler is a Senior Lecturer at City Law School, City St George’s, University of London, and a fully qualified German lawyer. He holds an LLM in Intellectual Property Law and a PhD in patent law from Queen Mary University of London. He has taught intellectual property law internationally, including at the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies, the Munich Intellectual Property Law Center (MIPLC), CEIPI and on WIPO postgraduate programmes, as well as at several leading UK law schools. He has held visiting positions at Waseda University and Meiji University in Japan. His research focuses on intellectual property law and its interfaces with competition, international trade, human rights and technology, with a particular interest in limitations and exceptions to intellectual property rights. His scholarship has been cited by an Advocate General of the Court of Justice of the European Union. He is currently completing a monograph on the public interest and exceptions to patent rights for Edward Elgar.

About this talk:
Intellectual property rights are traditionally treated as distinct regimes, yet the same subject matter may increasingly attract protection under copyright, trade mark, design and patent law. This talk examines how EU intellectual property law approaches such overlaps and the problems that cumulative protection may create. Using examples from copyright, trade mark, patent and design law, it considers when overlapping protection is legitimate and when it risks producing overprotection, restricting competition or circumventing limitations built into individual intellectual property regimes. Particular attention will be given to the EU courts’ treatment of product shapes and functionality, and to whether the emerging case law points towards broader principles for managing the boundaries between intellectual property rights.

A light lunch will be served for those attending in person.