Contributory liability is the liability of a party who is not the direct infringer, but who facilitates or contributes to the infringement committed by the direct infringer. With respect to trade marks, neither EU law nor national laws of member states (MS) provide specific rules to deal with the issue except very limited circumstances. Thus, the question of contributory trade mark liability is assessed under tort law rules. In that regard, the law seems straightforward. Yet, it is not. This is because, contributory liability now mainly arises in a new context: the Internet. Except from the cases of where the occurrence of a direct infringement of trade mark is questionable eg selling and buying keywords, Internet intermediaries' liability arise as contributory liability since they are the vehicles to facilitate transactions between third parties on the Internet. Here, it should be underlined that the thesis' scope is limited to the cases where it is unquestionable that the direct trade mark infringement has taken place, so the intermediaries' contributory liability is an issue. More precisely the cases dealing with selling of counterfeit goods. In those circumstances, trade mark owners have been seeking to fix the liability of an intermediary rather than the direct infringers themselves since reaching the latter is not always possible as they can easily remain anonymous or be located in jurisdictions which are not easily accessible for right holders. This is why, intermediaries have been the subject of contributory liability cases. As such, how should their liability be examined given that their involvement does not go beyond providing a necessary platform and infrastructure? How can their involvement be assessed as the Internet's infrastructure differs from that of the offline world? For these questions that arise from contributory trade mark liability, there are two legal instruments applicable within the EU: 1) tort laws of the MSs, and 2) pan-EU immunity regime established by the E-Commerce Directive 2000/31. The first is also applicable to the offline world while the latter provides a more Internet-specific approach as it establishes horizontally applicable safe harbour rules for certain activities of intermediaries. According to the Directive, intermediaries which provide mere conduit, caching and hosting services can be granted immunity from the liability arising from its users' infringements provided that the conditions stated under each Article are qualified. However, the immunity is provided as an additional protection meaning that not qualifying for immunity does not automatically result in the liability of an intermediary. Thus, whether an intermediary is liable or not is ultimately a subject of tort law of the MSs which is not harmonised within the EU. Thus, the law of contributory trade mark liability in the EU appears to be incoherent. On the one hand, the immunity rules govern when an intermediary would be granted immunity from liability and apply horizontally. On the other hand, tort law rules deal with the question of contributory liability but differ from one MS to another. Therefore, an analysis on existing law appears necessary in order to build the legal framework more systematically by demonstrating how it is applied. Yet, this analysis shall be undertaken to answer whether the current regime proves to be satisfactory in dealing with ongoing and emerging issues that the Internet brings and finally what the remedy would be for the issues where the law falls short in dealing them. These are the questions that have been neglected by the EU legislators. This thesis therefore undertakes this examination in the pursuit of answers to these questions and ultimately the remedy.

This thesis analyses the problematic relation between intellectual property (IP) and genetic conceptions of life. The ‘gene patent' has been controversial from its inception in the 1980s, and IP's definition of genetic sequences continues to undergo surprising changes. Recent examples include the contested overturn of some forms of gene patents in the US Supreme Court Myriad judgement, and continuing international debates about access and benefit sharing arrangements in the newly established Nagoya Protocol. The Myriad case confronted an international neoliberal bioeconomy with new demands of patients, which increasingly define their understanding of health and well-being in molecular terms. This thesis argues that the issues surrounding the patenting of genetic sequences go beyond an already widely criticised ‘commodification' of life, and points out that rather IP law is becoming a highly contested site in a wider problematization of the governing of life understood in molecular terms. Relying on an updated reading of Foucault's concepts of governmentality and biopolitics, it argues that informational-genetic conceptions of life have opened up a new sphere of intensified biopolitics, based on a ‘genetic dispositif' of knowledge and power. In its engagement with this dispositif, IP manages tensions between competing scientific knowledges about life, governs the participation of patients in medical research, and determines the rights of developing countries in an international bioeconomy. The analytical framework conceptualises these tensions as a confrontation with molecular biopower on three levels: in IP's changing understanding of DNA, in IP's relation to new ‘genetic' subjects and medical research charities, and in challenges to IP's exclusionary effects regarding the international sharing of benefits from research, and on demands for increased contributions to global health agendas. These challenges show how IP tactically contributes to the normalisation of knowledge, to the inclusion/exclusion of participation in the bioeconomy, and to the control of research agendas.