INSTITUTIONALISING ONLINE PLATFORMS UNDER THE EU DIGITAL SERVICES ACT: A PANACEA OR A RISK TO INNOVATION?

Resumo

Online purchasing has been blooming in recent years, with 12 % of EU enterprises offering their goods for sale online. However, recent reports and a line of case law indicate an increasing number of trademark infringements within their networks. From a legislative perspective, at the European level, the regulatory framework governing online platforms’ activities is based on the E-Commerce Directive, which has been updated by the Digital Services Act. This new framework came into force in 2022 and marks a shift from private ordering to the institutionalisation of online platforms’ roles through a set of legal rules,similar to those imposed on financial institutions. This article argues that the new legal framework envisaged in the Digital Services Act poses a serious risk to innovation within the EU Digital Single Market; hence, it puts forward a set of guiding principles based on a sector-specific legislative framework for the regulation of the liability of online platforms for trademark infringements that accrue within their networks.

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