Addition of TLD .COM Can Make Trademark Distinctive says French Court

Addition of TLD .COM can make trademark distinctive says French Court--

"In B v Pressimmo On Line (October 14 2014), the Paris Court of Appeal has ruled that, while the term ‘se loger’ (meaning ‘to find somewhere to live’) on its own was descriptive in relation to real estate, it was distinctive when combined with the top-level domain (TLD) ‘.com’. The claimant was a group of companies (Pressimmo On Line and Se Loger.com)..." read more at: worldtrademarkreview.com (subscription)

Note the difference between descriptive and distinctive marks: Trademark distinctiveness - Wikipedia: "Trademark distinctiveness is an important concept in the law governing trademarks and service marks. A trademark may be eligible for registration, or registrable, if it performs the essential trademark function, and has distinctive character. Registrability can be understood as a continuum, with "inherently distinctive" marks at one end, "generic" and "descriptive" marks with no distinctive character at the other end, and "suggestive" and "arbitrary" marks lying between these two points. "Descriptive" marks must acquire distinctiveness through secondary meaning - consumers have come to recognize the mark as a source indicator - to be protectable. "Generic" terms are used to refer to the product or service itself and cannot be used as trademarks...."

See also the search results here and the following:

Showing Common-Law Trademark Rights in a UDRP: "... the UDRP is only designed to be used by a complainant who owns the rights to a trademark that has been infringed upon by a domain name. Typically, trademark rights are proven in UDRP complaints by showing the copy of a registration certificate in some country. Merely having a pending trademark application is not enough. However, it may be possible to meet this proof by showing evidence of common-law trademark rights, which arise from actual use rather than from a formal registration...."

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