SERBIA Trends and Developments Contributed by: Dejan Bogdanovic and Mara Jankovic, Mikijelj, Janković & Bogdanović
One further point is that the transitional and final pro - visions of the Law do not clearly stipulate what will happen with respect to the calculation of the objective time limitation for ongoing cases. Article 115 stipu - lates that: “On the date of entry into force of this Law, the Trademark Law (Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia, No 104/09, 10/13 and 44/18 - other law) shall cease to be valid”. Meanwhile, Article 112, para - graph 1, stipulates that: “Trademarks valid on the date of entry into force of this Law shall remain in force, and the provisions of this Law shall apply to them”. This leaves the question of ongoing proceedings and infringement matters open to interpretation. This is worth noting, especially given that infringement court cases tend to last for a couple of years.
In short, what this means in practice is that even in cases where the infringement happened more than five years prior to the filing of the court petition, and occurred a number of times, the infringer can - not invoke the objection that the objective time limit has passed. In practice, the new law favours trade mark owners and gives them the opportunity to sue all persons against whom the objective deadline for filing a lawsuit under the previous trade mark law had expired. In conclusion, it seems that the changes effected by the Law have shifted the emphasis from the impor - tance of legal certainty to favouring trade mark own - ers’ rights, since they now have a much wider time window in which to file lawsuits against infringers.
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