Manolis Metaxakis

1 Introduction Invasive species, despite comprising only a small fraction of non-indigenous species, are amongst the leading drivers of global marine change, causing profound ecological and economic impacts (Bax et al., 2003; Boonstra et al., 2015). Among the most notorious invasive fish are the Indo-Pacific devil firefish Pterois miles (Bennett, 1828) and red lionfish P. volitans (Linnaeus, 1758) (hereafter, referred to collectively as ‘lionfish’) (Schultz, 1986; Kulbicki et al., 2012).

The Turkish Tourism Promotion and Development Agency has applied before the EUIPO for the trademark ‘TurkAegean’ to designate tourism-related services. This trademark was initially accepted for registration by the EUIPO. However, the registrability of the mark was the subject of intense debate due to various absolute grounds under the EU Trademark Regulation (EUTMR) regime.

The dispute between Inditex, the Spanish fashion group, and Ffauf Italia SpA, the Italian food producer, has, not surprisingly, a Greek head as well. It is well known, after all, that the dispute resembles the Lernaean Hydra. In Greece, Inditex sought to have some of Ffauf’s national trademark registrations, relating to ‘Pasta Zara’, revoked on the basis of non-use.