Tuesday News Briefing

A European court has ruled against Českobudějovický Budvar in the latest turn of the beer producer's longstanding branding dispute with U.S. company Anheuser-Busch.  Budvar had filed suit against Anheuser-Busch's rights to the "BUD" label on the EU market. In an ongoing court dispute launched in the mid-1990s, the European Court of Appeals overturned a previous ruling in Budvar's favor, which Anheuser-Busch appealed. In the ruling, judges reasoned the "BUD" trademark was not prevalent on the Austrian and French markets. Budvar may now appeal the decision.  

Young voters will decide on the result of the Czech presidential election, according to a report released by analyst firm Semantic Visions, which showed that Karel Schwarzenberg will win if young voters participate in the run-off vote. Otherwise, Milos Zeman will be the winner. Negative remarks about Schwarzenberg occur more often on blogs rather than news articles, and they are linked to issues such as nationalism and the Benes Decrees, on which the two candidates sharply clashed in a recent public debate. A similar trend can also be registered on Facebook, where the number of negative remarks about Schwarzenberg has risen recently. Nevertheless, Schwarzenberg's supporters and positive comments still see him clearly prevail on social networking sites, the report stated.