In today’s IP Insights, we wonder, whether there is room for copyright in packaging protection. In one of the previous issues, we described the IP protection of packaging based on trademark and industrial design law. How does copyright relate to that? 

On 1 June 2025, the Act on the conditions of permissibility of entrusting work to foreigners on the territory of the Republic of Poland entered into force. The Act maintains the general rules for entrusting work to foreigners that were previously contained in the Act on employment promotion and labour market Institutions. However, the new legislation introduces significant restrictions which, in practice, may make the process of hiring foreigners more difficult.

RozporządThe Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the framework for access to financial data and amending Regulations (EU) No 1093/2010, (EU) No 1094/2010, (EU) 1095/2010 and (EU) 2022/2554 (FiDAR) will impose new obligations on financial institutions. These relate to the provision of data on certain types of customer contracts to financial information service providers (FISPs) or other financial institutions. At the same time, financial institutions remain obliged under national regulations to maintain secrecy in respect of a significant part of their activities.  

Competition law explicitly prohibits price-fixing arrangements. This applies not only to collusion between competitors, but also to cases of resale price maintenance (RPM), in which a supplier (usually a manufacturer or importer) imposes fixed or minimum resale prices on its distributors.

Work on amending the Act of 11 September 2019 on Public Procurement Law is in progress. Their aim is to enable the restriction of the participation of economic operators from the so-called third countries in public procurement procedures. The proposed amendment responds to the judgement of the EU Court of Justice (C-652/22; Kolin Inşaat Turizm Sanayi ve Ticaret AȘ v Državna komisija za kontrolu postupaka javne nabave; ECLI:EU:C:2024:910). It confirmed that economic operators from countries that have not concluded relevant international agreements with the EU do not have guaranteed access to the EU public procurement market. 

The provisions of the EU Regulation on Artificial Intelligence (AI Act) start to come into force in stages and we are now approaching another important milestone. On 2 August 2025, further regulations will start to apply that will affect the activities of entities developing and making AI systems available, in particular the so-called General Purpose AI (GPAI) models. These models play a key role in the AI value chain, often providing the foundation for solutions developed by others. The new obligations may therefore affect not only the original suppliers of these models, but also the organisations that modify or integrate them in their products. 

Entrepreneurs should verify whether references to the beneficial health effects of botanicals do not appear on the packaging of their dietary supplements. Indeed, such a practice is not allowed, as confirmed by the Court of Justice of the EU in its latest judgement in case C-386/23. 

On 21 May 2025, the Sejm adopted an amendment to the Development Act, which aims to increase transparency in the real estate market and better protect buyers of dwellings and houses. The new regulations introduce, among others, an obligation of open publication of the prices of premises on developers’ websites, which should prevent unfair practices and facilitate comparing of offers. The amendment introduces new obligations for developers, in particular the requirement to disclose real estate prices. This will translate into new administrative and organisational challenges for companies operating in the development industry. Foreign entities planning to enter the Polish market will have to adapt their current practice to Polish regulations, which may have a direct impact on their existing business strategies.

AI model training requires enormous amounts of data, which include copyright-protected materials. The EU has introduced an exemption to the reproduction right, which permits the reproduction of works for the purposes of text and data mining (TDM). What was not immediately obvious was that the TDM exemption applies to AI training, as the Digital Single Market (DSM) Directive does not mention AI. However, there no longer seems to be any dispute about its applicability.

Poland has still not fully implemented the provisions of the EU Digital Services Act (DSA), although the deadline expired in February 2024. The European Commission has opened formal proceedings against Poland for the failure to comply with its obligations under the DSA. Poland remains one of the last Member States which have not adopted national regulations allowing to enforce the new rules.