Vinciane Vanovermeire

K.U.Leuven
E-mail:Vinciane.Vanovermeire@law.kuleuven.be
Tel. 00 32 16 323732
Fax 00 32 16 323730

Function:

Référendaire at the Court of Justice of the European Union
Scientific researcher at the Centre for Intellectual Property Rights KULeuven

Curriculum vitae:

Vinciane VANOVERMEIRE (°1971) studied law at UFSAL (Brussels/Belgium) www.hubrussel.ac.be, at the Université Robert Schuman (Strassburg/France) www-urs.u-strasbg.fr, and at the K.U.Leuven (Leuven/Belgium), www.law.kuleuven.be. She received her law degree (Lic. Juris) in 1994. In the same year, she joined the Bar of Ghent (Belgium), where she dealt with cases in commercial law and intellectual property law.
As from 1996, she worked as a part time assistant at the KUBrussel (Catholic University, Brussels) and as a part-time researcher at the Centre for Intellectual Property Rights (KUBrussel-KULeuven). In October 2000, she joined the Belgian Cour de Cassation (Belgian supreme court, www.cass.be ), as a référendaire.
Since 2009, she is a référendaire at the Court of Justice of the European Union.

Most of her research work concerns the "Cumulation of copyright and trademark rights". It focuses on the concurrence of copyright and trademark law in one object. It includes the investigation of the admissibility of the co-existence of both intellectual property rights within the legal system and its consequences. The study includes general problems like the evolution and convergence of the functions of trademark and copyright law, the disappearance of strict borderlines between these rights and the conflicts arising out of the co-existence and cumulation of copyright and trademark rights on the same product, like the exhaustion of the trademark right as opposed to the reproduction right of the author, the registration of public domain works as trademarks and the parody of trademarks.
The research is based on Belgian copyright law and Benelux trademark law (incl. European law) and makes a comparison to French and German law.

Further more she is a member of the working group on the modification of the Benelux Court Treaty and was involved in the foundation of Lukas- Art in Flanders, a non profit organization that establishes a centralised image bank of the Flemish art patrimony.

In general, her interests lie in subject matters as European, commercial and intellectual property law as such, with specific interests in trademark law, traditional copyright law, harmonisation and convergence of intellectual property rights, patent law and in issues concerning the establishment of a unified European Patent Litigation System and a community patent. It is her ambition to deal with these subject matters both from a scientific and a practical point of view.

Working Languages:

Dutch, French, English, German

Research Topics:

• Exhaustion of trademark rights and copyright
• Cumulation and Convergence of Copyright and Trademark Law
• IPR and rights of museums
• Community Patent and Unified Patent Litigation System

Publications and speeches (selection):

• “Rapports entre droit d'auteur, droit des marques et droit de la concurrence déloyale”,  for the Belgian Section of ALAI, New York, ALAI Congres, 2001.
• "Uitbreiding en modernisering van de bevoegdheden en de werkwijze van het Benelux-Gerechtshof”, for the members of the Benelux Parlement (Conseil interparlementaire consultatif de Benelux), 2005.
• "Wie is kopieerder in de zin van de Belgische auteurswet?", I.R.D.I. 2005, 277-284.
• With I. Verougstraete, “Het Benelux-Gerechtshof na het Benelux-Verdrag inzake de Intellectuele Eigendom”, I.R.D.I. 2006, 253-261.
• “Enkel de communautaire uitputting van het distributierecht van de auteur is toegestaan”, Auteurs et Media, 2007, 74-78.
• “Le respect des droits intellectuels en Belgique”, Cour de Cassation, 2007.
• “La marque succédant au droit d’auteur”, Chaire Arcelor (UCL), 2008.
• With G. Van Overwalle, “De toekomst van het Europees octrooirecht”, in, VRG Alumni (ed.), Recht in beweging. 16de VRG-Alumidag, Antwerpen, Maklu, 2009, 95-109.
• “Protection d’une marque et d’un dessin ou modèle en droit Benelux”, Cour de cassation, 2009.
• "Inschrijving als merk van een in het openbaar domein gevallen werk”, in, Cumul de droits intellectuels, Bruxelles, Larcier, 2009, to be publ.