Jurisdiction on the Internet after Pinckney

Abstract

European legal scholars who expected that CJEU in its awaited Pinckney C-170/12 ruling rejects the case as irrelevant, or at least follows academic projects like CLIP, remained disappointed, or even more, perplexed. Does the court's answering of questions mean also approving that they are relevant for the referring French court? Or does it only mean that CJEU did not want to waste this unique opportunity? Even more, does approving of questions implie some “procedural attribution principle” on the jurisdiction level of Art. 5(3)? Is mere accessibility criterion in the context of the mosaic theory of Shevill capable to prevent forum shopping and abusive copyright litigations with de minimis infringements? The ruling is not consistent on many of these issues. Interestingly enough, the Court even managed to confuse its own members, as the Advocate General in the pending Coty Prestige C-360/12 case not only formulated an unusual criticism of the Pinckney ruling, but also offered two conflicting solutions to the judges, rather than a single one.

Keywords: Jurisdiction, Internet, Intellectual Property, Pinckney, Art. 5(3) Brussels I