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" 305 APPLICATION OF THE EU EXHAUSTION OF RIGHTS DOCTRINE TO THE EXERCISE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS; A CRITICAL EXAMINATION Muhammad Istkhar Advocate, Lahore   Published in: Corporate Law Decisions Year of Publication: 2011 Suggested Citation: 2011 CLD Journal Section p.21 Introduction The exhaustion of rights is known as the first sale doctrine[1] which means once the goods has been put into the market by the owner with free consent then owner cannot prevent others to be a subject to trade again. For example a trade mark owner sells his goods in the market with his consent and without any reservation; he cannot object and give any kind of instructions about the further sale of that goods because he has exhausted his right. Now the issue is how the conflict between the exercise of intellectual property rights ("IPRs") and application of European Union ("EU") competition law will be resolved while both laws purposes are totally against each other. For example intellectual property rights which create the monopoly over the intellectual products and it entitles the owner to prevent the others to exploit it. In contrast competition law demands the free movement of goods and it wants to remove the barrier among the European Economic Area ("EEA") States, which is clearly against the monopoly rights[2]. In this article I will discuss critically the application in the EU exhaustion of rights doctrine to the exercise of intellectual property rights with the examples of the decisions of European Court of Justice ("ECJ"). Conflict between the exercise of intellectual property rights and EU competition law Intellectual property means the creations of the mind: inventions, literary, artistic works, symbols, names, images, (Cit.…