The second edition of Ulrich Hildebrandt's excellent volume, Harmonised Trade Mark Law in Europe: Case Law of the European Court of Justice, has now been published by Carl Heymanns Verlag. As the publisher's website says:

"This innovative tool provides fast and accurate information on ECJ decisions on Community trade mark law. Lawyers, specialised house counsels and judges can use it to quote precisely from case law and present convincing arguments with ECJ decisions, or get a reliable overview of the basic principles of this law. Fast access to relevant ECJ case law Users will find case law on a certain problem at a glance -- like in a commentary on the Trade Mark Law Directive.

Thanks to cross-references and allocation tables, ECJ case law can be comfortably related to provisions of the Community Trade Mark Regulation and to the national trade mark acts of all member states implementing the Directive.

... In addition to the English version there exists an identical German version with identical margin numbering. For example, this enables a lawyer wanting to file an opposition to a Community trademark application to use the guide for German pleadings and correspondence like a specialised dictionary".

The first edition of this book was warmly reviewed but, more importantly than that, it was used with enjoyment by serious practitioners whose ability to recall and cite relevant decisions at speed is greatly enhanced by this accurate and painstaking work. Dr Hildebrandt does not here provide a commentary on the decisions of Europe's institutional courts, though he is more than capable of doing so. Instead allows the courts to speak for themselves through his methodology of intelligent, sensitive citation of the most relevant passages.

Bibliographic data: xx + 248 pages, paperback. ISBN 978-3-452-26786-3. Price: 58 euro. Web page for English version here; web page for German version here.