SPAIN Law and Practice Contributed by: Mario Sol Muntañola, Javier Márquez Martín, Ferran Llaquet Ballarín and Ana Padial, Sol Muntañola Abogados
8.7 International and Cross-Border Considerations
signs have been infringed, it is possible to join the claims in a single action. Similarly, it is also possible to combine claims based on a specific intangible right (such as copyright or related rights, trade marks, or designs) with claims under unfair competition law, provided that the factual basis is not identical. In such cases, the doctrine of relative complementarity applies, meaning that when a certain act has already been assessed under the special legislation (intellectual property, trade marks, etc), the same facts cannot be reassessed under unfair competition law. As regards damages, given that the facts will not be the same, damages may be awarded for each of the intellectual property rights that the court considers to have been infringed. The only restriction is that dou- ble compensation is not permitted where the same facts give rise to overlapping infringements of different rights. This could occur, for instance, in cases involv- ing the misappropriation of trade secrets together with patent infringement, where the trade secrets are already encompassed within the scope of the patent infringement.
Conflict-of-laws rules in international disputes are generally designed to resolve uncertainties that arise in cases of conflict. However, they are not always easy to apply, as IP rights are highly territorial; and although there is a process of convergence in their regulation, significant differences remain, even within a territory such as the EU.
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