INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY : WHAT'S IN A NAME? GALILEO CAN STAY AS GALILEO.

• Position: Galileo International Technology LLC

The European Commission's use of the name Galileo' for the satellite radio navigation system is quite legal. This was the verdict reached by the Court of First Instance on 10 May (in case T-279/03) thereby dismissing the appeal introduced by Galileo International Technology LLC and thirteen other companies claiming that the use of the word was an infringement on their trade mark rights. Galileo International Technology is the holder of several trade marks containing the name Galileo mainly in the domain of travel reservations, air transport software programs, data transfer services, etc. Together with the other members of the Galileo group, they took legal action before the Court of First Instance of the European Communities to ban the Commission from using the term Galileo in reference to the EU's satellite navigation project on 5 August 2003.

But the Court ruled that the choice of name would not lead to any confusion, since the Commission's project did not offer products or services that could be deemed as similar to those covered by the plaintiff's trade marks. The Court maintained that until now the Commission has not used the term except as a means to give a general description of its radio navigation by satellite programme without establishing any concrete link between the products and services that the programme may market in the future and those products and services offered by the plaintiffs. The Court also dismissed the claim of the possibility of future infringement of trade mark rights: the use...