CJEU draws the line on "free expression" as a defence for using famous brands: the IKEA-Plan judgment

On 8 September 2026 the Court of Justice of the European Union handed down its judgment in C-298/23 Inter IKEA Systems, the case in which Belgian political party Vlaams Belang branded its asylum and immigration reform plan the “IKEA-Plan — Immigratie Kan Echt Anders”, complete with signs corresponding to IKEA’s trademarks and characters lifted from the style of IKEA’s assembly instructions. Inter IKEA sued the Vrijheidsfonds association, which ran the campaign; the defendant admitted the use and pleaded freedom of expression as “due cause” under EU trademark law.

The Court’s answer gives brand owners something they have lacked: a structured test for where expression ends and free-riding begins.

Invoking free speech is not enough

The core holding is about the burden. Mere reliance on the right to freedom of expression, the Court held, is not sufficient to establish due cause. A third party using a sign identical or similar to a reputed mark must set out the specific grounds for that use and demonstrate that those grounds take precedence over the rights and interests of the proprietor. Neither right — property under the Charter, nor expression — is absolute; the national court must balance them case by case.

The factors that decide the balance

The judgment lists what national courts must weigh, and the list reads like an enforcement checklist:

• Good faith and target of the speech. Use is favoured where the sign conveys an idea about the trademark itself, its proprietor, its commercial practices, or its goods and services. Using a mark to criticise the brand is one thing; borrowing its reputation to amplify an unrelated message is another.
• Contribution to public interest debate — a genuine factor, but one among several, not a trump card.
• Consequences for the proprietor. The owner cannot be required to tolerate use causing disproportionate detriment, or use that strikes at the substance of the exclusive rights themselves.
• Intensity, extent and methods of the use, and whether the use creates the impression that the proprietor endorses or supports the message — particularly acute where the brand’s stated values are political neutrality.

Applying the framework, the Court went unusually far for a preliminary ruling: the use of the IKEA marks “for the sole purpose of taking advantage of their reputation in order to reinforce a political message” may cause significant detriment and does not appear to take precedence over the proprietor’s rights — subject to the referring court’s verification.

What this means for you

For brands facing unauthorised use dressed up as commentary — political campaigns, activist stunts, meme accounts, “satirical” merchandise — the burden of justification just moved to the other side. After Inter IKEA, the user of a reputed mark in the EU must articulate specifically why your mark was necessary to their expression, and why that need outweighs your rights. “It got us attention” is now, per the Court, precisely the argument that loses: reputation-borrowing to amplify an unrelated message is the paradigm of use without due cause.

The line to respect runs the other way too. Genuine commentary about your brand — criticism of your products, your practices, your conduct — remains squarely protected, and the judgment strengthens it by naming it the paradigm of good-faith use. Enforcement against critics reading this judgment as a green light will fail, and should.

Counsel’s note. Most brand owners respond to expressive misuse at the extremes: ignore it, or send the angriest letter in the file. Both lose — the first cedes the mark’s distinctiveness, the second builds the infringer’s “brand bully” narrative. The working method after Inter IKEA is to run the Court’s own factors before acting: does the use target your brand or borrow it for an unrelated agenda? Does it imply your endorsement? Is the detriment documentable? Where the answers line up, enforce with the judgment in hand — the specific-grounds burden is now theirs to discharge. We broke the platform-by-platform mechanics down in our guide to legal content removal.