ABSTRACT
The law, through the threat of liability and the promise of immunity, incentivises intermediaries hosting third-party content to practice notice and takedown. In essence, assuming that an intermediary providing hosting services is served with a notice alleging a trade mark infringement, it must first consider whether the party serving the notice has a registered trade mark in the jurisdiction where enforcement is sought. Third parties may use trade marks in numerous contexts, some being legitimate, others constituting unauthorised acts of infringement. In the category of clear-cut cases of trade mark infringement, the normative outcome ought to be a finding of infringement. The category identified as ‘trade mark bullying’ concerns the assertion of trade mark rights in circumstances where a third party has made legitimate use of a registered trade mark. In contrast, where a policy of international or regional exhaustion is applied, the parallel importation of goods becomes possible without the interference from trade mark proprietors.
