[lamadjuret]

Article 36 of the EC Treaty must be interpreted as meaning that the owner of trade
mark rights may, even if that constitutes a barrier to intra-Community trade, rely
on those rights to prevent a third party from removing and then reaffixing or
replacing labels bearing the mark which the owner has himself affixed to products
he has put on the Community market, unless:
- it is established that the use of the trade mark rights by the owner to oppose the
marketing of the relabelled products under that trade mark would contribute to
artificial partitioning of the markets between Member States;
- it is shown that the relabelling cannot affect the original condition of the product;
- the presentation of the relabelled product is not such as to be liable to damage the
reputation of the trade mark and its owner; and
- the person who relabels the products informs the trade mark owner of the
relabelling before the relabelled products are put on sale.