Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Nowak-Far, Artur

Titel

Linking Signifié with Signifiant: The Court of Justice of European Union as a Product-Defining Authority

Ist Teil von

• International journal for the semiotics of law = Revue internationale de sémiotique juridique, 2017-12, Vol.30 (4), p.677-695

Ort / Verlag

Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands

Erscheinungsjahr

2017

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

SpringerLink

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Saussurean concept of signifie - signifiant agnation can be used to explain the EU law product-nomenclature referrals. The CJEU has an especially important role in developing detailed rules of product nomenclature interpretation in cases where ambiguities emerge. In its jurisprudence, the CJ pursues preservation of the predominant intuitive model of that interpretation even in cases involving composite products. Only in cases where the composition can easily be identified, the Court relies on the concept of the defining element—i.e. it takes the dominant element of the product as a product nomenclature determining one. With respect to novel products, the CJ applies the same general penchant. Therefore, with respect to such products, the Court attempts to establish their signifié - signifiant match by referring to analogous features and characteristics of already existing products. Such an approach is an evidence of the CJ’s self-constraint of its otherwise Demiurgic power concerning the product nomenclature. This argumentation implies that even the CN classification offers a catalogue of relatively rigid designators and that their rigidity is respected by the CJ. The CN designators are not perfectly rigid because the CJ takes into account not only the logical values of respective CN positions, but also the practical aspects (including transactional costs) of the CN classification, as well as the general objectives of EU rules underlying the CN position identification.