You run your business from London, New York, Dubai or Singapore, and France is your next market. The website is almost ready, the packaging carries your logo, and a French distributor is asking for exclusivity. One question decides whether that launch is an asset or a trap: who owns your brand in France? If you have not yet chosen the company that will hold it, read first our guide on how to choose between a SAS, a SARL, a branch or a subsidiary when you invest in France from abroad, then come back here. This article explains, entirely in English and with every French acronym translated, how a foreign founder files a trademark at the INPI (Institut national de la propriété industrielle, the French intellectual property office), how to survive the two-month opposition window, how to keep the mark alive, and how to stop a copycat and obtain damages without moving to France.
French law starts from a blunt rule. Article L.712-1 of the Intellectual Property Code provides that “La propriété de la marque s’acquiert par l’enregistrement.” In France, unlike in the United States, use alone does not make you the owner: the first party to file generally wins, and registration “produit ses effets à compter de la date de dépôt de la demande pour une période de dix ans indéfiniment renouvelable”. Filing first is therefore not an administrative detail; it is the act that creates the property right, sets its start date, and fixes the ten-year period that you can renew forever. A foreign company that sells, advertises or exhibits in France without a French or European Union filing is building goodwill on land it does not own.
The second thing to understand is speed. Once your application is published in the BOPI (Bulletin officiel de la propriété industrielle, the weekly gazette where the INPI publishes trademark filings), any holder of an earlier right has only two months to file an opposition. If nobody objects and the INPI examiner is satisfied, your mark proceeds to registration. If someone objects, the INPI decides the opposition itself. After registration, the clock keeps running in the other direction: if you do not make genuine use of the mark for five continuous years, anyone can ask for revocation, and a competitor can sue for cancellation of a descriptive or deceptive filing. This guide follows that timeline in order: file a registrable mark, survive opposition, use and renew it, and enforce it against copycats from abroad, with the exact statutes and the most recent Cour de cassation (the French supreme court for civil and criminal matters) rulings to prove each step.
I. How to file a French trademark from abroad and survive INPI examination and opposition
A. How to file a French trademark from abroad that the INPI will register?
A trademark in France is broader than many foreign founders expect, but not unlimited. Article L.711-1 of the Intellectual Property Code states that “La marque de produits ou de services est un signe servant à distinguer les produits ou services d’une personne physique ou morale de ceux d’autres personnes physiques ou morales.” Words, logos, slogans, colours, sounds and even shapes can qualify, provided the sign can be represented in the national register clearly enough for anyone to know exactly what is protected. Your company name, your domain name and your logo are not automatically trademarks: each must be filed as a mark if you want the monopoly.
The most common reason foreign filings fail is descriptiveness. Article L.711-2 of the Intellectual Property Code lists the signs that cannot be validly registered, including “Une marque dépourvue de caractère distinctif” and “Une marque composée exclusivement d’éléments ou d’indications pouvant servir à désigner, dans le commerce, une caractéristique du produit ou du service”. A name that simply describes what you sell, where it comes from, its quality or its purpose belongs to everyone, not to you. “Paris Software” for software, “Pure Cotton” for clothing, or a laudatory slogan such as “The Best Delivery” will be refused unless you prove that long and intensive use has taught the public to see the sign as your brand rather than as a description. That acquired distinctiveness is possible but expensive to prove from abroad, so the practical lesson is to file a distinctive sign from day one: an invented word, an arbitrary combination, or a logo with original features, and to avoid filing a purely descriptive English term on the assumption that French examiners will treat it as exotic.
The Cour de cassation applies that descriptiveness test strictly, and its reasoning shows what evidence matters. In a judgment of 6 December 2023, appeal number 22-16.078, the commercial chamber reviewed marks built around the word “kiosque” for online press distribution services. The lower court had rejected the cancellation claim, and the losing party argued that the sign was descriptive because the whole market now speaks of digital kiosks. The Cour de cassation recalled that a sign is descriptive where it currently describes a characteristic of the goods or services in the eyes of the relevant public or where it is reasonable to expect that it will do so in the future, and it censured the lower court for refusing to examine whether the widespread current use of the word confirmed that foreseeability at the filing date. For a foreign founder, the message is concrete: the INPI and the courts assess validity at the filing date, but today’s market usage can be evidence of what was foreseeable then, so a clearance search must cover not only identical earlier marks but also descriptive uses in your sector in French and in English.
Filing itself is done exclusively online on the INPI e-procedures portal, from anywhere in the world. You designate the applicant, attach a representation of the sign, and list every product and service you want covered, classified under the Nice Classification, the international system of 45 classes grouping goods and services by nature. The filing fee depends on the number of classes, and the list is frozen once you pay: you cannot add products afterwards, you can only file again. Three strategic choices deserve attention before you click. First, file broadly enough to cover your real activity plus its natural extensions for the next five years, but not so broadly that you multiply vulnerability to non-use revocation on classes you never exploit. Second, if you filed the same mark in a Paris Convention or World Trade Organization member state less than six months ago, claim priority: your French filing then backdates to the first filing, which can defeat an intervening competitor. Third, remember that French protection does not automatically extend to French Polynesia, which has its own industrial property jurisdiction; tick the extension box if you trade there. Non-resident applicants without an address in the European Economic Area generally act through a representative, typically a French industrial property attorney (conseil en propriété industrielle) or a lawyer, who receives INPI notifications and meets deadlines in French time.
After filing, the INPI examines absolute grounds: distinctive character, deceptiveness, public order, protected emblems and geographical indications. Article L.713-1 of the Intellectual Property Code then defines what registration gives you: “L’enregistrement de la marque confère à son titulaire un droit de propriété sur cette marque pour les produits ou services qu’il a désignés.” That monopoly is limited to the goods and services you listed, and it is granted without prejudice to rights that third parties acquired before your filing or priority date. Registration lasts ten years from the filing date and is renewable indefinitely, which is why large groups hold French marks filed decades ago and still in force. For a foreign group, the French filing can also serve as the base for an international registration through the Madrid system administered by WIPO (the World Intellectual Property Organization), designating further countries from one central application, or you can go the other way and designate France through an international registration or file directly at EUIPO (the European Union Intellectual Property Office in Alicante) for a European Union trademark covering all member states at once. The French national route remains useful when your dispute, your distributor or your infringer is specifically French, because the INPI opposition and the French courts are faster and cheaper than a Union-wide battle.
Practical checklist before filing from abroad: run a prior-rights search on the INPI database Brands (Base Marques) plus EUIPO and WIPO for identical and similar signs in your classes; run a company-name, trade-name and domain-name check, because the owner of a confusingly similar corporate name or a non-local commercial name can oppose; choose a distinctive sign and prepare evidence of any claimed acquired distinctiveness; draft the list of goods and services in the exact Nice wording the INPI accepts; appoint your French representative and align on who watches the BOPI publication; and diary the opposition window that opens on publication. The filing creates your rank, but the next two months decide whether it survives unchallenged.
B. How to win or survive an opposition before the INPI within the two-month deadline?
Opposition is the fast lane of French trademark litigation, and the deadline is unforgiving. Article L.712-4 of the Intellectual Property Code provides that “Dans le délai de deux mois suivant la publication de la demande d’enregistrement, une opposition peut être formée auprès du directeur général de l’Institut national de la propriété industrielle”. Only the holders of listed earlier rights can oppose: an earlier French, European Union or international mark having effect in France, a reputed mark, a company name or corporate name where there is a likelihood of confusion, a non-local trade name, signboard or domain name, a registered geographical indication, the name or reputation of a local authority, or the name of a public entity. The INPI publishes practical guidance confirming the two-month period runs from publication of the contested application and that the opposition fee must be paid for admissibility. From abroad, this means your French representative must watch the BOPI every week: miss the two months and you lose the cheap administrative route, leaving only the slower and more expensive court action for nullity.
The INPI decides oppositions through adversarial proceedings with an instruction phase, and its decisions have real teeth. Article L.716-1 of the Intellectual Property Code states that “Le directeur général de l’Institut national de la propriété industrielle statue sur la demande en nullité ou en déchéance au terme d’une procédure contradictoire comprenant une phase d’instruction, dans les conditions définies par décret en Conseil d’Etat.” The same architecture governs oppositions: exchange of briefs, possible cooling-off and settlement, then a reasoned decision that can reject the contested application in whole or in part. The losing party can appeal to the courts. For a foreign opponent, the procedure is entirely written and can be handled remotely through your representative, but the evidence must be French-ready: proof of the earlier right, proof of its scope, comparison of goods and services, and arguments on visual, phonetic and conceptual similarity, all in French.
The decisive legal question in most oppositions is the likelihood of confusion, and two Cour de cassation rulings of 13 November 2025 reset how it must be assessed. The first, appeal number 24-10.672, published in the Bulletin, is now the reference on composite signs. The holder of the earlier European Union word and semi-figurative marks for “Circus” opposed the French application “Circus Baobab” for identical and similar gambling and entertainment goods and services in classes 9, 28 and 41. The INPI director rejected the opposition, the Paris Court of Appeal confirmed, reasoning that “Circus” was not dominant inside “Circus Baobab” and that the consumer would not focus more on one word than the other. The Cour de cassation quashed that reasoning. It recalled the governing text: Cass. com., 13 Nov. 2025, no. 24-10.672 (Circus), holding that “Selon ce texte, ne peut être valablement enregistrée et, si elle est enregistrée, est susceptible d’être déclarée nulle une marque portant atteinte à une marque antérieure lorsqu’elle est identique ou similaire à la marque antérieure et que les produits ou les services qu’elle désigne sont identiques ou similaires à ceux pour lesquels la marque antérieure est protégée, s’il existe, dans l’esprit du public, un risque de confusion incluant le risque d’association avec la marque antérieure.” It then restated the European rule on autonomous distinctive position: Cass. com., 13 Nov. 2025, no. 24-10.672 (Circus), “Tel est le cas lorsque, en raison notamment de sa position dans le signe composé ou de sa dimension, la marque antérieure est susceptible de s’imposer à la perception du consommateur et d’être gardée en mémoire par celui-ci”. Because the lower court had noted that “Circus” was unquestionably distinctive yet refused to ask whether it kept such an autonomous position inside “Circus Baobab” and whether the public could believe the goods came from economically linked undertakings, the ruling was annulled. For foreign brand owners, this is a powerful offensive and defensive tool: adding a second word to a famous earlier mark does not neutralise confusion where the earlier mark still imposes itself on the consumer’s perception.
The second ruling of the same day shows the mirror error to avoid. In appeal number 23-11.522, an American energy-drinks company opposed a French semi-figurative filing built around a beast theme for beers and bar services, invoking its earlier European Union marks. The INPI had partially upheld the opposition, but the Versailles Court of Appeal annulled the INPI decision with contradictory reasoning, first finding visual, phonetic and conceptual proximity and then denying any similarity, while also weighing how drinks are actually bought on shop shelves. The Cour de cassation quashed on two grounds. First, contradictory reasoning equals lack of reasoning. Second, and more important for future cases, Cass. com., 13 Nov. 2025, no. 23-11.522 (Monster), “Le risque de confusion doit s’apprécier globalement par référence au contenu des demandes d’enregistrement ou des enregistrements de marques, vis-à-vis du consommateur des produits tels que désignés par ces demandes ou enregistrements et sans tenir compte des conditions d’exploitation des marques.” In plain terms, confusion is assessed against what the registrations cover, not against how the products are currently marketed, shelved or advertised, because marketing choices can change tomorrow. An opponent from abroad therefore argues from the wording of the Nice lists, not from photographs of supermarket shelves, and a defendant cannot escape opposition by showing that its current packaging looks different.
If you are the applicant facing an opposition, the same rulings structure your defence: attack the comparison of goods and services first, because without identity or similarity there is no confusion even with identical signs; then dispute visual, phonetic and conceptual similarity on the whole impression, not on isolated elements; then show that the earlier mark is weak, descriptive or diluted by coexistence of many similar marks; and where relevant, request proof of genuine use of the earlier mark if it has been registered for more than five years. Settlement is common and rational: limitation of your list of goods, coexistence agreement with market or territorial commitments, or assignment. If you are the opponent, file within the two months with the registration certificates, a precise table comparing each contested product to your own, and evidence of the reputation or intensive use of your mark where you claim extended protection. In both positions, act through a French representative who calendars the INPI instruction deadlines, because late briefs and late evidence are discarded.
II. How to keep and enforce your French trademark when you operate from abroad
A. How to keep your French trademark alive: genuine use, renewal and watching?
Registration is the birth certificate, not eternal life. Article L.714-5 of the Intellectual Property Code provides that “Encourt la déchéance de ses droits le titulaire de la marque qui, sans justes motifs, n’en a pas fait un usage sérieux, pour les produits ou services pour lesquels la marque est enregistrée, pendant une période ininterrompue de cinq ans.” After five years without genuine use for a given product or service, any interested party can bring revocation proceedings before the INPI director or before the courts, limited to the unused items. The earliest starting point is fixed by decree at registration, which means a foreign company that files defensively in twenty classes and only trades in three is creating future targets on the other seventeen. Proper planning files what you use, uses what you file, and diaries renewal and proof together.
Genuine use is a factual question with settled markers. Use must be real commercial exploitation in France aimed at creating or preserving market share, not token or internal use. The statute expressly treats as use the exploitation by a licensee with your consent, use in a modified form that does not alter distinctive character, and affixing the mark to products or packaging in France exclusively for export. Invoices, catalogues, screenshots of a French-facing website with prices in euros and delivery to France, advertising spend, distributor contracts, customs documents, app-store listings and social-media campaigns targeting French consumers all count, while internal presentations and a single sporadic sale generally do not. Since the 2019 reform, the INPI director can hear revocation and nullity claims directly, and Article L.716-1 of the Intellectual Property Code confirms that the director decides “au terme d’une procédure contradictoire comprenant une phase d’instruction”. In revocation cases the burden in practice falls on you as owner to prove use once the claimant shows the five-year period has run, so a company run from abroad must centralise evidence in France: keep dated French invoices, keep archived versions of the French site, keep advertising reports with French audience data, and keep distributor sell-through figures. Just reasons such as regulatory bans or import prohibitions can excuse non-use, but commercial difficulties, restructuring or waiting for the right distributor generally cannot.
Nullity is the second threat to an unused or badly filed portfolio. Article L.714-3 of the Intellectual Property Code provides that “L’enregistrement d’une marque est déclaré nul par décision de justice ou par décision du directeur général de l’Institut national de la propriété industrielle, en application de l’article L. 411-4”. Nullity looks backwards to the filing date: descriptiveness, deceptiveness, public-order violations and earlier rights are assessed as they stood then, while revocation looks at the five years after. A competitor that missed the two-month opposition window often returns years later with a nullity claim based on its earlier mark, or with a descriptiveness claim armed with new market evidence of the kind discussed in the 22-16.078 kiosk ruling. The defence is symmetrical: file distinctive signs, keep the filing file showing the searches you ran, and keep dated evidence of distinctiveness acquired through use.
Renewal and watching complete the maintenance system. Each French registration lasts ten years and is renewable indefinitely for a fee, with a six-month grace period subject to a surcharge; a missed renewal kills the monopoly and frees the sign for competitors. Assignment of the mark, licensing, pledges and security interests should be recorded in the national register to be enforceable against third parties. Watching (surveillance) is commercially indispensable: the INPI does not police your mark for you, so your representative should run a weekly BOPI watch plus EUIPO and company-name watches, and send a warning letter as soon as a confusing filing appears, well inside the two-month opposition period. For a group run from abroad, the cheapest structure is usually one French representative holding the powers for the whole portfolio, one central evidence file per mark, and one docketing system covering renewal dates, proof-of-use anniversaries and watch alerts. Distributor and licence agreements should oblige the French partner to use the mark exactly as registered, to report infringements, and to supply annual sales and advertising evidence you can reuse in revocation defence.
Company-law hygiene matters too. The mark should be owned by the entity that will enforce it and receive the royalties: often the foreign parent or a dedicated IP holding company licensing the French SAS (société par actions simplifiée, the flexible French company form most foreign investors choose) or SARL (société à responsabilité limitée, the more rigid limited-liability company). Record the licence, set a real royalty, and align the transfer-pricing file, because the French tax administration routinely challenges management fees and royalties paid by a French subsidiary to a foreign parent. An unrecorded handshake licence still allows proof of consented use in revocation cases, but it complicates infringement standing and royalty deduction. File, use, record, watch and renew: the five verbs of a portfolio that survives.
B. How to stop a copycat in France and obtain damages without moving to France?
French law gives the trademark owner a complete arsenal, and residence abroad changes nothing about standing. Article L.716-4 of the Intellectual Property Code states the principle: “L’atteinte portée au droit du titulaire de la marque constitue une contrefaçon engageant la responsabilité civile de son auteur.” The prohibited acts are listed in the surrounding provisions. Article L.713-2 of the Intellectual Property Code opens with “Est interdit, sauf autorisation du titulaire de la marque, l’usage dans la vie des affaires pour des produits ou des services :” of an identical sign for identical goods, and of an identical or similar sign for identical or similar goods “s’il existe, dans l’esprit du public, un risque de confusion incluant le risque d’association du signe avec la marque”. Reproducing your mark on products, packaging, business papers, advertising, a domain name, a marketplace listing or an app name can each be an infringing use in the course of trade. No intention or bad faith need be shown for civil infringement, although wilfulness increases damages and supports criminal referral in organised counterfeiting cases.
Evidence comes first, speed second. France offers the saisie-contrefaçon, an ex parte seizure procedure where a judge authorises a bailiff (commissaire de justice) to enter the suspect’s premises, describe, sample or seize infringing goods and documents without prior warning. The order is obtained quickly on presentation of your registration certificate and prima facie evidence of infringement, and the bailiff’s report then anchors the main action. At the border, customs (douane) can detain suspected counterfeit goods entering France under a Union or national watch application, which is particularly useful where the copycat manufactures outside Europe and ships through Le Havre, Marseille or Roissy. Online, the standard sequence is a dated bailiff’s report of the website or marketplace listing, including purchase and delivery records, followed by a formal notice, then platform takedown requests with the registration number, and finally court proceedings if the seller persists. A foreign rights holder performs every step through a French lawyer and bailiff under powers of attorney; personal presence in France is not required, and hearings are handled by counsel.
The main infringement action is brought before the judicial court (tribunal judiciaire), with the Paris court hearing the most complex cases, and it combines liability and remedies in one case. The court compares the signs and the goods globally, applying exactly the confusion analysis the Cour de cassation restated in the November 2025 Circus and Monster rulings: overall impression on the average consumer, weight of distinctive and dominant elements, autonomous distinctive position of the earlier mark, assessment against the registrations rather than current marketing. If infringement is found, the court orders cessation under penalty payments (astreinte), withdrawal and destruction of infringing goods and advertising at the infringer’s cost, publication of the judgment, and transfer or cancellation of an infringing domain name. Damages compensate the actual loss, classically the lost profits, the infringer’s unfair profits, and moral prejudice from dilution, with the court able to award a lump sum not less than the royalty that would have been due. Limitation is five years from knowledge of each infringing act, so systematic archiving of discoveries matters. Unfair competition (concurrence déloyale) and parasitism claims are routinely added where the copycat also imitates packaging, advertising concepts or commercial practices beyond the mark itself.
Domain names and marketplaces deserve a dedicated workflow because most foreign founders meet the copycat there first. A .fr domain identical or confusingly similar to your mark can be challenged before the courts or through the Syreli alternative procedure administered by Afnic (Association française pour le nommage Internet en coopération, the .fr registry) where bad faith registration or use is shown, in parallel with trademark infringement. Major marketplaces operate brand-protection portals where a registration certificate plus a power of attorney obtains takedowns within days; repeated takedowns build the file for court-ordered platform disclosure of the seller’s identity and accounts. Social-media handles and app names follow the same logic through each platform’s IP form. In every channel, keep the chain clean: registration certificate, dated evidence, warning letter with a short deadline, takedown record, then proceedings. Judges reward owners who warned clearly and acted quickly, and they punish ambush claims filed years after discovery.
Costs and funding can be managed from abroad without surprises. Court fees are modest, lawyer and bailiff fees are the real budget, and the losing party is routinely ordered to pay a procedural indemnity plus part of the winner’s costs, though rarely the full bill. After-the-event insurance, legal-expenses cover attached to French company policies, and conditional fee arrangements within French professional rules can bridge the gap. Criminal complaint for counterfeiting remains available for wilful large-scale cases and triggers police investigation and customs cooperation, but most foreign owners achieve their goal faster through civil seizure, injunction and negotiated settlement: surrender of stock, assignment of the domain, signed undertaking to cease, and a royalty-bearing licence where a commercial relationship makes sense. The thread running through every remedy is the same: file early, watch weekly, prove use continuously, seize evidence quickly, and sue on the registrations with the confusion analysis the Cour de cassation now states in consistent terms. Run from abroad through one French counsel team, and the distance becomes an administrative detail rather than a legal handicap.
Conclusion
A French trademark rewards the founder who treats it as a property title rather than a logo filing. Distinctiveness at filing defeats refusal and future nullity, the two-month BOPI watch preserves the cheap opposition route, continuous and documented use defeats revocation after five years, and seizure plus a confusion analysis built on the registrations defeats the copycat in court. The November 2025 Circus and Monster rulings give foreign owners clearer weapons than before: an earlier mark that keeps an autonomous distinctive position inside a composite sign can still confuse even where it is not dominant, while confusion is judged on what the registrations cover rather than on how goods happen to be shelved today. File the right sign in the right classes, appoint a French representative who watches and dockets, centralise French-language proof of use, and enforce through seizure, customs and the courts where needed. Your brand can then carry the French launch instead of depending on it.