Glossary
French: déchéance de marque
Déchéance de marque (roughly day-shay-AHNSS) is the loss of the rights attached to a trademark registration for reasons set out in the Intellectual Property Code. Unlike invalidity (which attacks the registration as granted), revocation sanctions what happens — or fails to happen — after registration. The closest US analog is cancellation of a registration for abandonment or genericness.
Non-use — the mark has not been used within the five years following its registration: déchéance pour non-usage. Compare US abandonment, but note the differences: a fixed five-year grace period from registration (versus the three-year non-use presumption in the US), and no French or EU equivalent of the Section 8/71 declarations of use.
Deceptive use — use of the mark has become liable to mislead the public: déchéance pour déceptivité (deceptiveness).
Genericide — the mark has become generic, losing its capacity to distinguish goods or services because the public uses it as an everyday word: déchéance pour dégénérescence.
Because French and EU rights are acquired by registration rather than by use, a register left unpoliced would fill with marks that no longer correspond to any real commercial activity, blocking later applicants for no good reason. Revocation is the release valve: it lets a third party clear away a registration that has outlived its justification, whether that justification was actual use, honest representation to the public, or a distinctive (rather than generic) meaning. The burden of proving use, once non-use is raised, falls on the registered owner — a point that surprises US counsel used to abandonment being harder to establish against a defendant who can point to any token use.
Revocation does not operate retroactively to the registration date the way invalidity does; it takes effect from the date the ground arose (for example, the date the five-year non-use period expired), or from the date a third party requests revocation if that date cannot be fixed precisely. A partial revocation is also possible: a mark used for some but not all of its registered goods and services can be revoked only for the goods and services where use is lacking, leaving the rest of the registration intact — the same partial-cancellation logic a TTAB cancellation proceeding can produce.
Beyond the abandonment analogy for non-use, deceptive-use revocation has no precise Lanham Act equivalent, though it echoes the policy behind refusing or canceling deceptive marks under Section 2(a). Genericide revocation maps closely onto US genericness cancellation — the same “did the relevant public come to use the word as the name of the product itself” question drives both, and the same brand-owner failure to police generic use of the mark (in advertising, in the press, in everyday speech) tends to be Exhibit A in both jurisdictions.
A US company registers a French mark, launches successfully, then is acquired and the acquirer rebrands, quietly discontinuing use of the original French mark for more than five years while the registration sits untouched on the INPI register. A competitor wanting to use a similar name can file for revocation for non-use, and once it succeeds, is free to file its own application for the now-vacated mark.
Revocation actions against French marks can be brought administratively before the INPI — a faster, cheaper route than court proceedings — or before the courts, including as a counterclaim in infringement litigation.
Revocation risk should factor into every trademark clearance search (an apparently blocking registration may in fact be vulnerable) and into portfolio maintenance ahead of trademark renewal. See also: trademark cancellation, revocation for non-use.