Glossary
French: recherche d'antériorité
The recherche d’antériorité — prior-rights or clearance search — determines the availability of a sign before adoption or filing. It is the French counterpart of a US clearance search, and it matters even more in Europe: since the INPI and EUIPO do not examine applications against earlier marks, a conflicting application will register unopposed unless the earlier owner reacts — clearance is entirely the applicant’s responsibility.
The search focuses primarily on registered and applied-for marks, in the classes potentially identical or similar to the goods and services of the contemplated filing.
US counsel accustomed to the USPTO’s own likelihood-of-confusion examination sometimes underestimate how much work shifts to the applicant’s side in France and at the EUIPO. Because no examiner will flag a conflicting earlier mark, a brand can sail through to registration and be used for months or years before an opposition, trademark cancellation, or infringement claim surfaces — often after significant marketing spend and goodwill have already been built around the name. A thorough clearance search before filing, or even before public launch, is therefore not a formality but the primary risk-management tool available, since the INPI opposition and EUIPO opposition windows are short, non-extendable, and triggered by publication dates a brand owner must actively watch.
Because French law recognizes a broader category of distinctive signs — company names, trade names, shop signs, and distinctive domain names — a search limited to the trademark register alone is incomplete. Any of these unregistered rights can support an opposition or a later invalidity action if they predate the new filing and cover a related activity. A comprehensive French or EU clearance exercise should account for this wider universe of prior rights, not just registered marks, particularly for a brand name that is also likely to be used as a company or domain name.
A clearance search performed by a trademark attorney can be more or less comprehensive; the fuller the search and the analysis, the higher the cost, since more attorney time goes into the review. Searches run on free online databases are possible but limited: they will not surface all variations, and will miss marks that are merely similar rather than identical — precisely the marks most likely to found an opposition.
A US software company planning to launch a product name in the EU might run a US-only knock-out search internally, find no exact hits, and proceed to file. A French or EU similarity search conducted before filing could instead surface a phonetically close, unrelated EU mark registered for related services — a conflict a purely visual, US-style search would likely miss, and one far better addressed before filing, by adjusting the name or budgeting for a possible opposition, than after.
For our search offerings and methodology, see trademark clearance search; for what happens when a conflict emerges despite a search, see responding to a trademark opposition and trademark opposition; for the underlying legal test, see likelihood of confusion. For a tailored search scope and quote, contact us.