Judgment — ECLI:EU:C:2026:250
Date: 2026-03-26
Language of the case: French
Court formation: Third Chamber
Procedure: Reference for a preliminary ruling
Origin: France

Summary of the applicable provisions 
11 Under Article L. 711-3(c) of the French Intellectual Property Code, in the version 
applicable to the dispute, no sign the use of which is likely to mislead the public, 
in particular as to the nature, quality or geographical provenance of the product or 
service, may be adopted as a trade mark or element of a trade mark. 
12 That provision transposed in turn the provisions of Article 3(1)(g) of Directive 
89/104/EEC to approximate the laws of the Member States relating to trade 
marks, Article 3(1)(g) of Directive 2008/95/EC of 22 October 2008 and 
Article 20(b) of Directive (EU) 2015/2436, which are essentially identical. 
13 Interpreting Directive 89/104/EEC of 21 December 1988 to approximate the laws 
of the Member States relating to trade marks, the Court of Justice of the European 
Union, in its judgment of 30 March 2006, Emanuel (C-259/04), after pointing out 
that the circumstances for refusing registration referred to in Article 3(1)(g) of 
Directive 89/104 presuppose the existence of actual deceit or a sufficiently serious 
risk that the consumer will be deceived, held that, even if the average consumer 
might be influenced in his or her act of purchasing by imagining that the natural 
person whose name is registered as a trade mark was involved in the design of the 
product bearing the trade mark, that fact cannot in itself be of such a nature as to 
deceive the public as to the nature, quality or geographical origin of that product 
(paragraphs 47 to 49). 
Grounds for the reference for a preliminary ruling 
14 The Court of Appeal, Paris, ruled that the ‘Fauré Le Page Paris 1717’ trade marks 
are deceptive. 
15 That decision holds that it is misleading to communicate, by means of the trade 
mark applied for, false information on a company which results in the average 
consumer of the goods or services for which the trade mark has been registered 
inferring that they have a particular quality or prestige. 
16 Such an interpretation appears compatible with the illustrative nature of the list in 
Article 3(1)(g) of Directive 2008/95/EC of 22 October 2008. 
17 A survey put before the Court of Appeal by Goyard ST-Honoré demonstrates also 
that the age of the undertaking claimed by a trade mark influences the consumer’s 
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decision to buy the products in question, in particular in the luxury leather goods 
sector, with the result that the age of an undertaking is an important factor for 
consumers, whose decision to buy is thus influenced by that information. 
Reference to the age of an undertaking is consequently a factor in attracting 
customers and therefore confers a competitive advantage. 
18 It is clear from findings in the judgment which are not open to review that, in 
applying for ‘Fauré Le Page’ trade marks containing the date 1717, the Fauré Le 
Page companies are misrepresenting themselves as being the ‘successors’ to the 
former Maison Fauré Le Page. 
19 In that regard, it should be noted that the previous judgment of the Court of 
Cassation in this case specifically criticised the Court of Appeal, Paris, for 
accepting this status as ‘successor’ without finding that Fauré Le Page Paris had 
continued or taken over the activities of Saillard or that it was the latter’s 
successor in law, and without indicating how the mere transfer of the ‘Fauré Le 
Page’ trade mark, applied for in 1989, entitled that company to rely on the age of 
Maison Fauré Le Page with respect to the general public. 
20 The Court of Cassation considers that the deceptive nature of a trade mark is not 
limited to a misleading message relating solely to the characteristics of the product 
or service or some of them, but may also concern the characteristics of the 
undertaking which is the proprietor of the trade mark itself, and in particular its 
age, since a consumer is likely to infer from the false information thus 
communicated by the trade mark that the product bearing it has certain qualities or 
enjoys a certain prestige – qualities and prestige which may influence the 
consumer’s decision to acquire the product. 
21 It is also recalled that, in its judgment of 23 April 2009, Copad (C-59/08), the 
Court of Justice of the European Union held, with regard to damage to the quality 
of goods which may be alleged against a licensee by the proprietor of the trade 
mark, that the quality of luxury goods is not just the result of their material 
characteristics, but also of the allure and prestigious image which bestows on 
them an aura of luxury (paragraphs 24 to 26). It may therefore be asked whether, 
at least in the luxury goods sector, where the trade mark or one of its elements 
confers on the designated goods a prestigious image which influences the 
consumer’s decision to buy those goods, the trade mark should be declared invalid 
if that element is false. 
22 The Fauré Le Page companies maintain that, in order to be considered deceptive, 
the trade mark must be likely to mislead the consumer not as to the undertaking 
but as to the nature and characteristics of the goods or services designated in the 
registration. 
23 They argue that this is how the Emanuel judgment must be understood. 
24 They add that, in applying the provisions of Article 7(1)(g) of Regulation (EC) 
No 207/2009 of 26 February 2009 on the European Union trade mark, which are 
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essentially identical to those of Article 3(1)(g) of Directive 2008/95/EC of 
22 October 2008, the General Court of the European Union ... rules that the 
assessment of the absolute ground for refusal based on the deceptive character of a 
trade mark can be made only in relation to the goods or services concerned, that 
the application of that ground implies a sufficiently specific designation of 
potential characteristics of the goods and services covered by the trade mark and 
that only where the targeted consumer is led to believe that the goods and services 
possess certain characteristics which they do not in fact possess will he be 
deceived by the trade mark (... judgments of 29 November 2018, Khadi and 
Village Industries Commission v EUIPO – BNP Best Natural Products (Khadi 
Ayurveda), T-683/17, paragraph 53; of 29 June 2022, Hijos de Moisés Rodríguez 
González v EUIPO – Ireland and Ornua (La Irlandesa 1943), T-306/20, 
paragraphs 56 and 57, and of 29 November 2023, Myforest Foods v EUIPO 
(MYBACON), T-107/23, paragraphs 29 and 30). 
25 It must also be noted that, acting upon those principles in relation to the trade 
mark ‘Longwy Paris Maîtres artisans depuis 1798’, applied for by a company 
established in 2000 to designate, inter alia, ‘jewellery; semi-precious articles of 
bijouterie; articles of jewellery with ornamental stones; articles of jewellery made 
of precious metal alloys’, a Cancellation Division of the European [Union] 
Intellectual Property Office (Decision of 27 November 2019, No 19646 C) 
rejected the application for cancellation of that trade mark, stating that the fact that 
the proprietor has held the title of master craftsman since 1798, or even that his 
business was established in 1798, does not confer any particular characteristic on 
the goods and services and consequently does not create any specific expectations 
on the part of the consumer which would involve the existence of actual deceit. 
That decision adds that the trade mark may be perceived as laudatory at most and, 
in so far as the reference to that date does not contradict the way in which the 
contested list of goods and services is worded, it is acceptable. 
26 The Fauré Le Page companies conclude from this that, since no specific 
characteristics of the leather goods designated in the registration are described by 
the ‘Fauré Le Page Paris 1717’ trade marks, which at most convey a general idea 
of quality, they cannot be regarded as deceptive for the purposes of Article 3(1)(g) 
of Directive 2008/95/EC. 
27 The Advocate General considers that a reference should be made to the Court of 
Justice of the European Union for a preliminary ruling. She states that the solution 
adopted by the [General Court] raises questions as to the possible impact of a 
reference made by a trade mark to the age of the undertaking. Accordingly, she 
refers to a study on the perception of the age of the undertaking conveyed by a 
trade mark, from which it emerges that, in certain sectors, age confers a 
competitive advantage on the supplier of the goods or services and added value to 
a trade mark able to claim such an age, on account of the know-how and quality 
which a consumer of the goods or services concerned expects on the basis of the 
continuity of the undertaking. 
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28 The Court of Justice does not appear to have had occasion to endorse the General 
Court’s case-law according to which the ground for invalidity relating to the 
deceptive nature of a trade mark implies a sufficiently specific designation of 
potential characteristics of the goods and services covered by the trade mark and 
only where the targeted consumer is led to believe that the goods and services 
possess certain characteristics which they do not in fact possess will he be 
deceived by the trade mark. 
29 Although the Emanuel judgment, cited above, may be interpreted, as the 
appellants do, as meaning that a trade mark is not deceptive if it misleads the 
consumer as to the qualities of the undertaking which manufactures the goods 
bearing the mark, it was nonetheless given in the specific case of a trade mark 
consisting of a designer’s name, so that considerations specific to that context may 
explain the solution adopted. 
30 In the present case, it is clear from assessments made by the court adjudicating on 
the substance, which are not open to review, that the ‘Fauré Le Page Paris 1717’ 
trade marks are perceived as falsely claiming, for their proprietor, several 
centuries of operation in the leather goods business and that the incorrect 
information thus conveyed is likely to influence the decision of consumers to buy 
goods bearing one of those trade marks, since consumers of luxury leather goods 
attach importance to the history and age of the undertaking marketing those 
goods. 
31 The resolution of the dispute therefore depends on whether that finding is 
sufficient to establish that the trade marks are deceptive for the purposes of 
Article 3(1)(g) of Directive 2008/95/EC of 22 October 2008. 
32 In that regard, it must first be determined whether the fact that a trade mark 
conveys incorrect information on its proprietor which may influence the average 
consumer of the goods and services covered by that trade mark is sufficient to 
support the conclusion that it is deceptive, or whether the error caused must relate 
to the characteristics of those goods or services. 
33 Next, even assuming that a trade mark is deceptive only if it relates to the 
characteristics of the goods or services covered by that trade mark, does a finding 
that it is deceptive presuppose that the trade mark constitutes a sufficiently 
specific designation of potential characteristics of the goods or services covered 
by the trade mark? 
34 Finally, if the answer to that question is in the affirmative, the question arises as to 
whether, in particular in the luxury goods sector, in which the history associated 
with the trade mark is an important element in the attractiveness of the goods 
bearing it, the fact that the trade mark ascribes to its proprietor considerable 
experience, and therefore proven know-how, in the manufacture of the goods 
covered by the trade mark constitutes a sufficiently specific designation of 
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potential characteristics of the goods covered by the trade mark, which those 
goods do not possess. 
The questions referred for a preliminary ruling 
35 The following questions therefore arise [reproduced in the operative part] ... 
... 
ON THOSE GROUNDS, the Court: 
... 
REFERS the following questions to the Court of Justice of the European Union: 
1. Must Article 3(1)(g) of Directive 2008/95/EC of 22 October 2008 to 
approximate the laws of the Member States relating to trade marks be interpreted 
as meaning that a reference to a fanciful date in a trade mark conveying false 
information on the age, reliability and know-how of the manufacturer of the goods 
and, consequently, on one of the intangible characteristics of those goods is 
sufficient to establish the existence of actual deceit or a sufficiently serious risk 
that the consumer will be deceived? 
2. If the answer to the first question is in the negative, must that article be 
interpreted as meaning? 
(a) that a trade mark may be regarded as deceptive where there is a likelihood 
that consumers of the goods and services designated by the trade mark will 
believe that the proprietor of that trade mark has been producing those goods for 
centuries, thereby conferring on them a prestigious image, whereas that is not the 
case? 
(b) that, in order to establish the existence of actual deceit or a sufficiently 
serious risk that the consumer will be deceived, on which a finding that a trade 
mark is deceptive depends, the trade mark must constitute a sufficiently specific 
designation of potential characteristics of the goods and services for which it is 
registered, so that the targeted consumer is led to believe that the goods and 
services possess certain characteristics which they do not in fact possess? 
...