NETHERLANDS LAW AND PRACTICE Contributed by: Friederike Henke, Ingrid Cools, Philip ter Burg, IJsbrand Uljée, Suzan van de Kam and Epke Spijkerman, BUREN
Trade Name Law Trade name law protects the names under which enterprises operate. Trade names come into being automatically, as soon as enterprises start operating; owners do not have to register trade names in the commercial register. The protection of trade names is regulated in the Trade Names Act. Trade name law has been of growing impor - tance recently due to the use of trade names in internet domain names. Trade Secrets The Dutch Trade Secrets Act ( Wet bescherm- ing bedrijfsgeheimen ) implements the EU Trade Secrets Directive (Directive 2016/943/EU), which sets out rules for the protection of trade secrets. Trade secrets refer to any information that: • is not generally known or readily accessible to persons in the circles who normally deal with this type of information and is therefore of economic value; • is subject to appropriate confidentiality meas - ures by the lawful holder; and • the holder has a legitimate interest in the con - fidentiality thereof. An owner of trade secrets must enforce “appro - priate measures” and establish the confiden - tiality of said trade secrets in order to ensure protection. The Dutch Trade Secrets Act stipulates the actions allowed for discovering trade secrets: so-called reverse engineering is permissible, provided it does not violate contractual obliga - tions or other mandatory statutory law. In the case of infringements, trade secrets own - ers can demand the cessation or prohibition of the use or disclosure of the trade secret, and even product recalls regarding the infringing
Copyright owners have the right to take legal action against persons infringing their copy - rights. Dutch civil law and Dutch copyright law provides, among other things, for the possi - bility of injunctions, full damages, the surren - der of profits made on the infringement, to be accounted for by the infringing party, the transfer or destruction of infringing products, cost orders and withdrawal from the market, or the destruc - tion of materials predominantly used for the manufacturing of the infringing products. In addition to copyright, there are “neighbouring rights”, which are also known as ”related rights” and protect the work of performers, music and film producers, and broadcasting companies. 7.5 Others Plant Breeders’ Rights Under EU Regulation (EC) No 2100/94 of 27 July 1994 on community plant variety rights and the Dutch 2005 Seeds and Planting Materials Act, plant breeders can invoke plant breeders’ rights to protect new plant varieties. The Board for Plant Varieties ( Raad voor Plantenrassen ) is responsible for granting plant breeders’ rights in Databases consisting of collections of ordered data can be protected by database rights under the Dutch Database Act. Semiconductor Topography Rights Semiconductor topography rights protect the design of electronic circuits on computer chips (also known as the topography of semiconductor products). These rights protect circuits designed to perform specific functions. the Netherlands. Database Rights
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