Glossary
French: dépôt frauduleux (dépôt de mauvaise foi)
A bad-faith filing (dépôt frauduleux or dépôt de mauvaise foi) is a trademark application made with a dishonest intention rather than a genuine purpose of using the sign to identify one’s own goods and services. French and EU law treat it as an absolute ground of invalidity: a mark filed in bad faith can be struck from the register.
The concept is deliberately open-ended, judged on the applicant’s intention at the filing date, assessed in light of all the circumstances. Recurring patterns include:
Bad faith can also taint a filing that is technically valid on its face — the defect is in the filer’s purpose, not in the sign.
US practice attacks dishonest registrations mainly through fraud on the USPTO — a narrow, hard-to-win claim requiring proof of a knowing, material misrepresentation made with intent to deceive the office. EU and French bad faith is broader: it does not depend on a false statement to the office at all. It reaches the filer’s commercial intent — blocking, free-riding, hijacking — even where every box on the form was truthfully checked. For US counsel, the practical upshot is that some conduct that would never sustain a US fraud claim can invalidate a French or EU mark as a bad-faith filing.
One more difference matters: an invalidity action grounded on bad faith is generally not time-barred — it can be brought long after the mark has settled onto the register, unlike many prior-right challenges hemmed in by limitation or acquiescence.
A US manufacturer negotiates with a French distributor and shares its brand and product plans. Before any contract is signed, the distributor quietly files the US brand as a French trademark in its own name, hoping to control the manufacturer’s entry into France. That filing — made in knowledge of the manufacturer’s prior use and with intent to appropriate the sign — is a textbook bad-faith filing, vulnerable to invalidity.
Bad faith sits among the absolute grounds and figures in the third-party rights analysis; it is a standard tool in a trademark cancellation or invalidity action. Catching a hijacking filing early depends on a working trademark watch. See also trademark filing and trademark owner.