French government claims back « France.com » (as trade mark and domain name)

According to French Courts, the name of a country is like a person’s name. National governments can therefore prevent appropriation by private entities of their country’s name, even in the absence of a registered mark. This was the case of the French government, which succeeded in the ‘Atout France’ decision handed down by the Court of Appeal of Paris on 22 September 2017. According to French newspapers (here), the defendants have lodged an appeal against the decision before the French Supreme Court (Cour de Cassation). The French government (represented by the public ‘Atout France’ [Atout France’ is a national Economic Interest Grouping (EIG) dedicated to the development of tourism in France] and the French Ministry of Culture) disputed the registration by a private company of a series of marks using the word, or words, ‘France.com’ (see below). According to French jurisprudence, national states should be able to enjoy…

Read more detail on Recent Copyright posts –

This entry was posted in Copyright Law and tagged , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply