captation parasitaire

15:41 Jul 22, 2020 

As I recall, any name among the 100 most frequent names in the London telephone book is protected from liability as "misappropriation", but as mentioned, one would expect that physical proximity, storefront similarity, etc. may restore liability to some extent. In any event, for most names the possession of the name is not a defense. A fortiori considering that legal name changes are available.

12:30 Jul 22, 2020 

of a Winchester teashop proprietor named John Forte whose establishment was (and still is) called Forte's. He had to fight (successfully) an expensive legal challenge by the Granada Group who were claiming proprietary rights to what was only the poor man's surname. The irony was that he is a distant relation to Charles Forte, the founder of the Forte hotel and restaurant group.

20:17 Jul 21, 2020 

Certainly there would be a case for the publican of a thriving King's Head to consult his or her lawyer in the case of a deliberate mis-representation by a copycat setting up round the corner. In the case of a less common name like the Marquess of Anglesey, once with three pubs of that name within a 600-yard or metre radius of Trafalgar Square-to-Covent Garden, the sheer scope for confusion meant that two pubs had to change their name.

18:45 Jul 21, 2020 

Yes, in fact when I was pondering these matters earlier I wondered specifically about names of businesses, and if they are small there's little chance of them being registered trademarks. In fact most are probably impossible to register: forgetting chains and pubcos for the minute, how many King's Head pubs are there up and down the UK? But does that mean you can just open a second King's Head just round the corner from a thriving existing one?

Having done quite a few of these sorts of cases it is always fun to see French judges reasoning meticulously to try and decide whether something is an unfair practice. (Although usually it is: I doubt whether many would reach court if things weren't quite open-and-shut).

11:24 Jul 21, 2020 

We may need to think outside of the narrow categories, both in French and English Common law, of regd. vs. an unregd. trademark, such as that of the name of a Restaurant des Crêpes in Paris or London that may take issue with the unfair competition posed by a Restaurant of the Creeps around the corner and that 'attracts the custom' of all , or most, of the pancakes business by 'leeching off' the rival's unregd. name https://www.186.legal/article_juridique/le-parasitisme-la-co...

PS I assume the translation is for UK 'passing-off' consumption rather than NB for US 'misappropriation of clients = goodwill' use; see TechLaw DCs answer.

06:36 Jul 21, 2020 

Yes. In fact the plaintiffs have two heads of damages: one based on trademark infringement, the other on unfair and parasitic competition. They want the court to make two awards. Here the court is discussing whether to allow both. Misleading customers about the origin of a product presumably is a fault regardless of intellectual property matters.

But it still puzzled me: I assumed that if you have an unprotected trademark anyone can slavishly imitate it etc. But a quick glance at the Wikip page for "passing off" (Adrian MM's solution) shows that it isn't that simple: "In common law countries such as the UK, Australia and New Zealand, passing off is a common law tort which can be used to enforce unregistered trade mark rights. The tort of passing off protects the goodwill of a trader from misrepresentation."

22:30 Jul 20, 2020 

un produit qui ne fait pas ou ne fait plus l'objet de droits de propriété intellectuelle,
=
where could be the "trademark infringement" if there is no Intellectual property to infringe on?

Maybe somewhere else in the text, but not here.