{"id":14130,"date":"2021-04-26T13:28:53","date_gmt":"2021-04-26T13:28:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pmcg.pt\/?p=14130"},"modified":"2021-04-26T13:28:53","modified_gmt":"2021-04-26T13:28:53","slug":"france-wins-france-com-trademark-dispute-in-us-federal-appeals-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pmcg.pt\/en\/france-wins-france-com-trademark-dispute-in-us-federal-appeals-court\/","title":{"rendered":"France wins \u2018France.com\u2019 trademark dispute in US federal appeals court"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><\/h3>\n<h3><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-14137\" src=\"https:\/\/www.pmcg.pt\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/France-com-1-300x85-2.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"85\" \/><\/strong><\/h3>\n<h3><strong>France wins \u2018France.com\u2019 trademark dispute in US federal appeals court<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>The US Fourth Circuit held on Thursday that France is immune from US trademark infringement claims brought by the former owner of \u201cFrance.com.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Circuit Judge Diana Gribbon Motz, joined by Judges Henry Floyd and Allison Jones Rushing, said the French government did not engage in commercial activity that would negate its sovereign immunity when it won the rights to the domain name in French court from France.com Inc.<\/p>\n<p>Jean-No\u00ebl Frydman, a US citizen and French expat, bought the \u201cFrance.com\u201d domain name in 1994 and used it to sell French travel services. He registered a company called France.com Inc. in California and owned both US and EU trademarks protecting the name.\u00a0 Frydman\u2019s company sued a Dutch company in French court in Paris for infringing on the marks, where the French government intervened by alleging it had the sole right to use the name \u201cFrance\u201d commercially under French law.<\/p>\n<p>The French court rendered a judgment in favor of the French government in 2015, finding the company\u2019s use of the domain name infringes on the rights of the French Republic to its name. The court ordered the transfer of \u201cFrance.com\u201d to France. The Paris Court of Appeals has since affirmed the lower court\u2019s decision in 2017, and an appeal of that case to the French Court of Cassation is currently pending.<\/p>\n<p>Similarly, the General Court of the European Union found in 2018 that \u201cFrance.com\u201d cannot be registered as a trademark as it is like a previous trademark registered in 2010 by France. According to the Tribunal, \u201cthe signs at issue cover identical or similar services and exhibit a particularly high degree of phonetic and conceptual similarity,\u201d which causes a likelihood of confusion.<\/p>\n<p>France.com Inc. later sued the French Republic in a Virginia federal court for cybersquatting and trademark infringement. US District Court Judge Liam O\u2019Grady in Alexandria rejected the French government\u2019s request to dismiss the case under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act in 2019, finding the immunity question \u201cwould be best raised after discovery has concluded.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On appeal, the Fourth Circuit said the US Supreme Court has deemed sovereign immunity a threshold question that should be addressed \u201cas near to the outset of the case as is reasonably possible.\u201d The Fourth Circuit went on to say that France was immune from the claims because neither the commercially reasonable nor the expropriation exemptions apply in this instance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>France wins \u2018France.com\u2019 trademark dispute in US federal appeals court The US Fourth Circuit held on Thursday that France is immune&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14133,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-14130","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-legal-present"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - 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