Bad-Faith Filings in France: How the Supreme Court Polices Trademark Squatting

Your French distributor registers your brand in its own name. A departing employee files the mark he watched you build. A squatter grabs the US name you have not yet brought to Europe, then offers to sell it back. In each case the register now shows someone else as the owner of your sign — and you have no US-style priority-of-use right to fall back on. French law’s answer is the doctrine of the bad-faith filing (dépôt de mauvaise foi, also dépôt frauduleux), and recent Cour de cassation rulings show how far it reaches and what a claimant must prove. See our glossary entry on bad-faith filing and the pillar on third-party rights.

Two remedies: take the mark, or destroy it

France offers a choice US law does not cleanly replicate. You can seek invalidity (nullité) — the mark is struck from the register, like a US petition to cancel. Or you can bring a revendication: a claim of ownership that leaves the mark alive but transfers title to you. The Cour de cassation stressed in the Napapijri litigation that these are not interchangeable — revendication hands the registration to its rightful owner, whereas nullity destroys the title altogether (Cass. com., 28 January 2026, no. 24-14.760). If you actually want your name in France, revendication is the prize: you inherit the existing registration and its filing date instead of starting over. A court will not convert a nullity request into an ownership claim for you, so plead the one you want.

What “bad faith” means to the Cour de cassation

Bad faith turns on the filer’s intention at the filing date, assessed objectively from all the circumstances, following the CJEU’s Koton case law. It does not require any likelihood of confusion:

“The existence of a likelihood of confusion in the mind of the public need not necessarily be established for [this] ground of invalidity to apply. … Where it appears from other circumstances that the proprietor filed the application with the intention of harming the interests of third parties in a manner inconsistent with honest practices [mauvaise foi], or with the intention of obtaining an exclusive right for purposes other than those falling within a trademark’s functions, that intention must trigger invalidity, whether or not there was a likelihood of confusion.”

— Cass. com., 28 January 2026, no. 24-14.760

What this means for US brand owners: you need not show the squatter’s mark is confusingly similar to yours — a distributor who copies your name and a squatter who invents a slight variation are equally exposed, because the wrong is the dishonest intent, not the resemblance. And the court must weigh the full picture: bad faith is assessed globally, including facts after the filing — prior disputes, the filer’s later use, its pattern of other applications — evidence it may not discard just because the signs differ.

The court cannot dodge the fraud question

Bad faith is a standalone ground, independent of the infringement or reputation analysis — and the Cour de cassation enforces that independence. In the Richard Mille case, a third party had filed that well-known watchmaker’s name; the Paris Court of Appeal rejected the fraud argument because the filing was unobjectionable for the goods where no earlier right was infringed. The Supreme Court reversed:

“In so ruling, on grounds unfit to rule out the fraud [fraude], the court of appeal violated the aforementioned provision and the principle [that fraud vitiates everything — fraus omnia corrumpit].”

— Cass. com., 31 January 2024, no. 22-17.562

What this means for US brand owners: the absence of confusion for some goods is not a defense to bad faith. Argue the dishonest scheme on its own terms; do not let it be folded into a narrower likelihood-of-confusion inquiry.

The consent trap

The mirror image matters just as much. If you authorized the filing — even loosely, even by email — it is in good faith and your claim collapses. That sank the brand owner in the Medimix dispute: an Indian manufacturer’s French distributor had registered the mark, but the manufacturer’s own side had emailed, in English, “We agree for your registration of Medimix brand in France.” The Cour de cassation upheld the finding of good faith:

“[The court] deduced that the consent given … was clear and subject to no condition … and that [the distributor] did not register the Medimix mark in bad faith [mauvaise foi].”

— Cass. com., 7 January 2026, no. 24-11.068

What this means for US brand owners: never hand a foreign partner an open-ended “yes, register it.” State in the distribution agreement that any French or EU application must be filed in your name or expressly held on your behalf. A casual approval can transfer your brand to your distributor by consent.

Timing: bad faith stops the clock

The good-faith/bad-faith line also governs deadlines. An ownership claim (revendication) is time-barred five years after the application is published — unless the filing was in bad faith, when no limitation runs; in Medimix, the authorized (hence good-faith) registration let the five-year bar defeat the claim. Invalidity reaches further: since the 2019 loi Pacte, an action to invalidate a French mark is subject to no limitation period, and Napapijri confirmed this covers marks in force on 24 May 2019 even where the old five-year clock had already run out.

Recovery is possible but rarely quick. In the Bébé Lilly saga, the rightful owner litigated more than thirteen years to win back a mark filed “in fraud of his rights”; by then it had lapsed and the INPI refused his late renewal. The Supreme Court still protected him — shutting him out would have stripped him of his property without compensation. The lesson: attack squatting early, through a trademark watch that catches the hijacking filing before it hardens.

For US counsel specifically

Two contrasts matter. First, French bad faith is broader than fraud on the USPTO: US fraud demands a knowing, material misrepresentation made with intent to deceive the office, and is hard to win. French bad faith needs no false statement to the INPI at all — it reaches the filer’s intent to block, free-ride or hijack, even where every box on the form was truthfully checked. Second, there is no discovery to pry that intent loose: you build the case from objective traces — distribution contracts, dated correspondence, the filer’s other applications, proof of your own prior use — so preserve that paper trail from day one. When the dispute widens into copied products, the same file feeds a parallel unfair-competition and litigation claim.

Key takeaways

• France lets you claim a hijacked mark (revendication — title transfers to you) or cancel it (nullité); they are distinct remedies, so plead the one you want.
• Bad faith turns on the filer’s dishonest intent at filing, judged objectively across all circumstances (including post-filing conduct) and needs no likelihood of confusion.
• It is a standalone ground: a court cannot reject it just because the signs differ or no earlier right is infringed.
• Written authorization defeats bad faith and revives the time bar — never give a distributor open-ended consent to register.
• Bad-faith invalidity is now imprescriptible; a good-faith ownership claim expires after five years. Watch the register and move early.

Applicable law

Art. L. 712-6 French Intellectual Property Code (claim of ownership / revendication where a mark is filed in fraud of a third party’s rights); bad faith as a ground of invalidity (Art. 4(2) of Directive (EU) 2015/2436, formerly the optional ground of Art. 3(2)(d) of Directive 2008/95/EC), now free of any limitation period under Art. L. 716-2-6; the general principle fraus omnia corrumpit. The bad-faith test derives from CJEU, 12/09/2019, C-104/18 P, Koton.

Decisions cited

French decisions are searchable by number on Pappers Justice.