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  • Home
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  • Maarten Rijks
Maarten Rijks
Maarten Rijks

Maarten Rijks

Partner

  • Eindhoven Netherlands
Contact Me Today
+31 88 02 43 117
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Featured award

Legal500 2025

Intellectual Property: trade marks, copyrights and design rights - Leading Partners

Scroll to featured award

Maarten is a partner in our Intellectual Property practice group in the Netherlands and heads the Benelux Brands & Advertising and Copyright & Media team.

Clients describe Maarten as an attentive and trusted advisor who gives commercial and practical advice. He has more than 15 years of experience in intellectual property law, and specialises in trademark- and design law, intermediary liability and e-commerce, copyright law, media- and advertising law and (promotional) games of chance.

Maarten is an experienced litigator, regularly representing clients in all matters and instances, from the Dutch national courts up until the Benelux Court of Justice and the European Court of Justice. Furthermore, his expertise includes a wide array of IP contracts, such as license agreements, R&D agreements and confidentiality agreements. 

 

 

Expertise

Services and Groups

Brands & advertising
Copyright & media law
Environmental, social & governance (ESG)
Patents & innovation
Green advertising

Sectors

Consumer & retail
Technology, media & communications
Cryptoassets, blockchain and distributed ledger technology

Green advertising

Environmental protection and sustainability in corporate communications and advertising

All relevant and recent updates

CV

Since 2019 Partner, Taylor Wessing
2015 - 2019 Senior Associate, Taylor Wessing
2009 - 2015 Associate, Banning in ‘s-Hertogenbosch
2014 IP Contracting Academy
2008 LLM, Dutch law, Radboud University, Nijmegen
2008 LLB, Dutch law, Radboud University, Nijmegen

Career

Since 2019 Partner, Taylor Wessing
2015 - 2019 Senior Associate, Taylor Wessing
2009 - 2015 Associate, Banning in ‘s-Hertogenbosch

Education

2014 IP Contracting Academy
2008 LLM, Dutch law, Radboud University, Nijmegen
2008 LLB, Dutch law, Radboud University, Nijmegen

Publications

  • Annotation of Dutch Supreme Court, 20 February 2015 
  • In the case Ajax/defendant (likelihood of confusion under Benelux trademark law), Jurisprudence in the Netherlands, Sdu Uitgevers, April 2015
  • Vanpersieing, Mollemadness: the value of image rights for famous sport players, ProProf Magazine, December 2014
  • Annotation of Dutch Supreme Court, 17 January 2014
  • Jurisprudence in the Netherlands, Sdu Uitgevers, April 2014
  • Annotation of Dutch Supreme Court, 27 September 2013 in the case Boston Scientific/OrbusNeich (procedural costs in a patent case)
  • Jurisprudence in the Netherlands, Sdu Uitgevers, November 2013
  • Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights through Border Measures ("The Netherlands, Law and Practice in the EU" chapter), Oxford University Press, July 2012
  • Red soles referral

Memberships & Associations

  • International Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property (AIPPI) 
  • European Communities Trade Mark Association (ECTA)
  • International Trademark Association (INTA)
  • Benelux Association of Trademark and Design Law (BMM)
  • Dutch Association of Intellectual Property Litigation Lawyers (VIEPA)

Additional languages

English Dutch

Awards

Legal500 2025

Featured

Intellectual Property: trade marks, copyrights and design rights - Leading Partners

Lexology European Awards 2025

Intellectual Property: Trademarks Lawyer of the year

WTR 2025

Silver individuals 2025

Legal500 2024

Intellectual Property: Trademarks, copyright and design rights - Next Generation Partner

Silver individuals 2024

Silver individuals 2023

Silver individuals 2022

"Taylor Wessing has been steadily building out its local offering, which provides a 360-degree service through its one-stop shop set-up, with judicious support from its international network as and when needed. The side’s management of thousands of marks is effortless – not least thanks to the vigilant quality control of Maarten Rijks. The Benelux trademark and design practice head is a tough adversary with an uncanny ability to predict the likelihood of success before districts courts, courts of appeal and the Supreme Court."

Silver individuals 2021

Leading individual (Silver): Instrumental to the firm’s growth is seasoned trademark practitioner Maarten Rijks, who “always responds quickly and provides insightful and practical advice”. “Possessing strong analytical skills, he gets to grip with the intricacies of legal matters. Rijks and his team have a way of drafting complex legal information in a simple manner that is easily accessible to clients.”

Leading indivdual: Leading light Maarten Rijks “has an acute business understanding and is very practical in his approach”. A “potent litigator with great communication skills”, Rijks is also highly valued for his hawkish anti-counterfeiting efforts. He was recently involved in a landmark ECJ case for Van Haren against Christian Louboutin regarding the latter’s red sole trademark; another highlight has been his representation of JPMC Investment Group in invalidity proceedings against the Kind Group before the EUIPO.

Leading individual: “Soft IP maven Maarten Rijks heads the trademark and copyright team and has a penchant for cases involving luxury, sports and entertainment brands”. “He has a fine instinct for the best use of border measures – a subject on which he has written for the Oxford University Press”. “We are very satisfied with the way Maarten and his team work for all our entities worldwide,” reports one satisfied patron. “He is a trusted adviser and makes sure each case is treated with the utmost care. I appreciate his practical approach, his business understanding of my company and his ability to refer us to law firms in other jurisdictions”.

Experience

Dutch theme park

Representing a large well-known Dutch theme park in Dutch litigation on alleged copyright and neighbouring rights infringements including a debate on the scope of a CMO licence.

Maarten Rijks

Van Haren

Representing Van Haren in legal proceedings against Airwair (Dr. Martens) up an to the Dutch Supreme Court, Courts of Appeal and the Benelux Court of Justice. Also representing Van Haren in the landmark case on the validity of Louboutin’s red sole mark at the European Court of Justice.

Press release
Maarten Rijks

Dutch Solar company

Representing a Dutch solar company in a trademark infringement, bad faith trademark application and defamation matter before the Dutch courts.

Maarten Rijks

US Companies

Successfully assisting US companies in seizing IP addresses hosted with RIPE in Amsterdam. The US companies were already involved in litigation in the US against a Turkish defendant and had filed a claim for damages as a result of direct liability for copyright infringement.

Press release
Maarten Rijks

US user generated content platform

Representing a large US user generated content platform in intermediary liability litigation (trademarks and image rights) in the Netherlands.

Maarten Rijks

Dutch theme park

Representing a large well-known Dutch theme park is Dutch litigation on alleged copyright and neighbouring rights infringements including a debate on the scope of an CMO licence.

Maarten Rijks

Maarten's news & insights

View Maarten's insights
registered designs
Click here to find out more
Patents & innovation

Fatboy v. Coolado: The Hague District Court confirms broad protection for registered designs

11 September 2025

by Maarten Rijks and Naomi Kannekens

Glass.Mapper.Sc.Fields.Image?.Alt
Copyright & media law

Another copyright infringement of the famous Tripp Trapp chair

26 August 2025
Briefing

by Maarten Rijks and Iris van der Heijdt

Click here to find out more
Glass.Mapper.Sc.Fields.Image?.Alt
Copyright & media law

News Flash: Employer’s Copyright Banned (ONB-decision)

14 March 2025
Briefing

by Manon van Weezel and Maarten Rijks

Click here to find out more
View Maarten's insights

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