Under the principle of exhaustion of rights, once the proprietor of a trademark or copyright has placed a product on the EU market, or consented to its marketing there, its right to control further distribution of that specific item is exhausted.
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This means that a distributor may import genuine products in parallel from one EU Member State into another without the proprietor’s consent. It is a direct consequence of the principle of free movement of goods.
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The limits are clear: exhaustion applies only to products placed on the EU market with the proprietor’s consent. Goods originating from third countries do not benefit from EU exhaustion, so an original perfume imported from the United States cannot be freely resold in the EU without the proprietor’s consent.
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Likewise, altering packaging, relabelling or repackaging in breach of the BMS v Paranova case law can destroy the protection afforded by exhaustion and turn legitimate parallel imports into infringement.