Court of First Instance – October 31, 2008
In a recent decision, the Paris court of First Instance admitted the cancellation action for dilution initiated by CARREFOUR against trademark CAROUF in classes 35 and 38.
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The Court admitted as sufficient evidence that CARREFOUR could justify being the owner of the CARREFOUR trademark, in particular for “advertising and communications” services, and produced a website extract where (in French) “Carrefour’s beer” is nicknamed “Carouf’s beer”.
As the defendant could not produce any evidence of use of its own trademark for the services concerned, cancellation was granted.
In our opinion, the simple fact that Carrefour was able to produce a website extract in which its trademark is infringed upon by contested mark CAROUF in relation to beers is fairly insufficient to justify any cause for action for Carrefour.
It is therefore surprising to note that in January 2009 the French trademark Office rejected Carrefour’s opposition to another trademark CAROUF for lack of confusion between the signs.
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