Invalidity & revocation
Challenging — or defending — a registered trademark after grant.
A registered trademark can still be removed after grant. Two actions do this — invalidity (nullité), where the trademark should not have registered, and revocation (déchéance), where the owner has lost the right. France and the EU both offer them, but France has, since 2020, moved much of this to a streamlined administrative procedure.
Invalidity (nullité): the trademark should not have registered
Invalidity is sought on absolute grounds — the sign was descriptive, non-distinctive, deceptive or filed in bad faith — or on relative grounds, where an earlier right prevails. Absolute-grounds invalidity is not time-barred, and bad faith in particular can be raised at any time; a relative-grounds claim, by contrast, can be lost through acquiescence, where the owner of the earlier right tolerated the later trademark for five years with knowledge.
Revocation (déchéance): the right has been lost
Revocation removes a trademark that has not been put to genuine use for an uninterrupted five years, that has become the generic name for the product, or that has become deceptive. It can be sought once the trademark has been registered for five years, and the burden of proving genuine use falls on the owner.
The procedure in France — now before the INPI
Since 2020, most stand-alone invalidity and revocation actions are filed directly with the INPI in a written, adversarial procedure rather than before a court. The INPI hears these principal actions; the courts retain them when the action is connected to another claim, such as infringement, or rests on certain other earlier rights. The procedure runs through defined exchanges of submissions to a reasoned decision, with a route of appeal.
The procedure in the EU — the EUIPO Cancellation Division
At EU level, invalidity and revocation are brought as cancellation actions before the EUIPO’s Cancellation Division, in a similar written, adversarial form. There is no general deadline to act, subject again to acquiescence on relative grounds. We run both the French and the EU routes and choose between them according to where the trademark and the conflict sit.