The French company Maison Fauré Le Page had been engaged in the purchase and sale of weapons, ammunition and leather accessories since 1716, until its dissolution in 1992. The company’s assets and liabilities were transferred in their entirety to Saillard. Subsequently, the company Fauré Le Page Paris, founded in 2009, acquired the French trademark “Fauré Le Page” from Saillard.

In 2011, Fauré Le Page Paris registered two French trademarks bearing the designation “Fauré Le Page Paris 1717” for leather goods. However, the company Goyard ST-Honoré brought proceedings against Fauré Le Page, seeking a declaration of invalidity in respect of the contested trademarks on the grounds that they are likely to deceive the public.

The French courts held that the elements “Paris 1717” would be understood by the public as referring to the place and date of establishment of Fauré Le Page’s business and that the public would, thus, be misled into believing that there had been a continuity of operations since 1717 and a transmission of know-how from the original company, when that was in fact not the case. It added that consumers purchasing luxury leather goods often attach importance to the history and number of years of existence of the company, as a guarantee of expertise involved in their manufacturing and their quality.

However, the trademark owner appealed against the above-mentioned judgement, arguing that a trademark to be regarded as liable to deceive the public, the average consumer must be misled not as to the characteristics of the proprietor of the trademark, but of those of the goods and services covered by the mark. Since the contested trademarks merely suggested at most a particular level of quality and prestige, they cannot be considered as deceiving trademarks.

The French courts decided to stay the proceedings and refer a question to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling, in order to determine whether, when a reference to a year in a trademark 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.

The Court of Justice concluded that the signs incorporating a year or a city which may be understood by the public as indicating the year of establishment of the trademark’s proprietor, when that is not the case, cannot, in itself lead to the invalidity of that mark. However, if such nature misleads the public as for the characteristics of the goods and services covered, it falls into the provision of deception. In the luxury leather industry, proprietors’ unjustified claims to a history spanning several centuries influence consumers’ purchasing decisions, as consumers attach particular importance to a luxury company’s history and longevity, inferring quality and prestige from it. Consequently, deception could be established where no such long-standing expertise exists.

Judgment of the Court of Justice (Third Chamber) of 26 March 2026 in Case C‑412/24