Martin Senftleben

My practice as Of Counsel at our firm in The Hague is focused on strategic advice and tailor-made legal solutions in the area of copyright, trademark and database protection.

As a practicing lawyer at our firm (2008 to 2019), I litigated various copyright and trademark cases, including lawsuits about hyperlinking and website blocking. Besides my current Of Counsel position, I am Full Professor of Intellectual Property Law and Director of the Institute for Information Law (IViR) at the University of Amsterdam. My current work addresses platform and AI regulation in the EU, income prospects and revenue streams in the creative industries, and brand-based communication in virtual and augmented reality environments.

I am a member of the Copyright Advisory Committee of the Dutch Ministry of Justice and Security and provided advice to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in several trademark and copyright projects. I am a member and former president of the European Copyright Society (ECS), president of the Trademark Law Institute (TLI), and a member of the Executive Committees of the Association littéraire et artistique internationale (ALAI) and the International Association for the Advancement of Teaching and Research in Intellectual Property Law (ATRIP).

My publications include the leading article-by-article commentary European Trade Mark Law (with Annette Kur, Oxford University Press 2017) and books on EU copyright and trademark law (Copyright, Limitations and the Three-Step Test and The Copyright/Trademark Interface, Kluwer Law International 2004 and 2021). I published more than 60 articles in international (EU and US) and national law journals, more than 40 chapters in handbooks and edited volumes, several scientific reports and broadly supported policy recommendations.

As a guest lecturer, I provide courses on copyright and trademark law and practice at the Centre for International Intellectual Property Studies (CEIPI), Strasbourg, the Munich Intellectual Property Law Center (MIPLC), the Jagiellonian University Krakow and the University of Catania. I regularly provide talks on current developments in intellectual property law at national and international conferences, workshops and roundtables.

• I regularly provide advice on new copyright and trademark protection standards arising from new technologies and business models. In particular, I have broad expertise in the field of rights clearance in the audiovisual sector and liability for copyright infringement for online content platforms. In trademark law, the protection of brand image and brand experience is a focal point of my activities. I also advise on international trademark registration strategies, including the Madrid System.

• I have handled high profile cases in the fields of copyright, database and trademark protection, such as cases on the protection of TV programme listings, copyright liability for acts of hyperlinking, the blocking of websites because of systematic IP infringement, the registrability of geographically descriptive names, design elements and cultural heritage artworks as trademarks.