The UK Courts, all the way to the Supreme Court, are bound to follow the interpretation decisions of the CJEU in respect of matters based on EU law. The Trade Marks Act 1994 is based very heavily on Directive 89/104/EEC of 21 December 1988, which was implemented to harmonise trade mark law across the EU (or EC as it then was).
You know that regular complaint of the red-top press about how the UK is subordinate to EU law? In areas where we have passed laws that implement EU Directives (and the UK is obliged by treaty to do so within 3 years of them passing) then it is true. The Court of Appeal had to ask for interpretation on this point in order to resolve the case before it, and is obliged to follow the CJEU's decision, no matter how much the judges in question dislike it.
This is part and parcel of being pro-Europe: we've handed over some of our sovereignty and this means we get told to do things in a way that left to our purely domestic legal traditions we would not do.
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The UK Courts, all the way to the Supreme Court, are bound to follow the interpretation decisions of the CJEU in respect of matters based on EU law. The Trade Marks Act 1994 is based very heavily on Directive 89/104/EEC of 21 December 1988, which was implemented to harmonise trade mark law across the EU (or EC as it then was).
You know that regular complaint of the red-top press about how the UK is subordinate to EU law? In areas where we have passed laws that implement EU Directives (and the UK is obliged by treaty to do so within 3 years of them passing) then it is true. The Court of Appeal had to ask for interpretation on this point in order to resolve the case before it, and is obliged to follow the CJEU's decision, no matter how much the judges in question dislike it.
This is part and parcel of being pro-Europe: we've handed over some of our sovereignty and this means we get told to do things in a way that left to our purely domestic legal traditions we would not do.