CABINET CHAILLOT

The signs excluded by Article 6 ter of the Paris Convention (emblems,...)

Before filing an application for the registration of a trademark, it is highly recommended to conduct a search for anteriorities among the trademarks which are already filed.

Before filing an application for the registration of a trademark, it is highly recommended to conduct a search for anteriorities among the trademarks which are already filed. However the prior marks are not the only signs which can preclude the registration of a mark.In fact, according to Art. **2** of the Intellectual Property Code, a trademark can also be anticipated by the name or style of a company, a protected appellation of origin, authors' rights, rights deriving from a protected industrial design, a surname, the name of a local authority...According to Article **1** of the French Intellectual Property Code, the filed trademark must not either be or employ a sign excluded by Article **4** of the Paris Convention (State emblems, Official Hallmarks, and Emblems of Intergovernmental Organizations).In order to be protected according to this article, a name, an abbreviation, a flag or another sign must be the object of an application before WIPO, as this has been made in 1980 by the Criminal Police International Organization Interpol.Afterwards, this Organization was therefore in a position to bring an action for nullifying the French complex trademark "Inter Pôle Informatique" in a yellow and black cartouche under the form of a badge like a police badge, designating various goods and services in the computer and data processing field.According to the titular of the trademark ;- it fell to the French Patent and Trademark Office not to register the sign if it were not in conformity with Article **4** of the Paris Convention ;- according to this Article **4**, paragraph 1c, a registration must be prohibited if it is calculated to suggest, in the public mind, a connection between the Organization in question and the trademark subject to the action, which is not the case taking into account the adjunction of the word "informatique" and the meaning of the word "pôle" : either of the two terminals of a generator or an electric receptor used for the connections or exterior circuit.On July 5, 2000, the County Court of Paris has decided that :- "Inter Pôle" is a reproduction of "Interpol" (visual similarity, phonetic identity, identical suggestive power) ;- the suggestive power is strenghtened by the use of a badge and of the yellow and black colors evoking a badge of the US police ;- the group of the ressemblances implies that the mark "Inter Pôle Informatique" suggests in fact a connection with the Interpol ;- the registration of the trademark by the French Patent and Trademark Office does not bind the Court.Consequently, the trademark "Inter Pôle Informatique" was invalidated in pursuance to Articles **1** and **3** of the French Intellectual Property Code, because it imitates the emblem and the sign of an intergovernmental international organization, which are protected according to the Paris Convention.County Court of Paris - July 5, 2000

---