Comment by soufron | Hacker News Reader

Comment by soufron | Hacker News Reader

... it's more simple than that. He had registered several trademarks under the name France.com. The French gvt sued him to transfer these trademarks.

And they won thanks to trademark law that prevents registering trademarks when people have prior rights on them - which the French gvt has on the name France.

The judges also explained that he never tried to demonstrate that the French gvt was aware of this use and that let us do it.

And finally, they explained that he was exactly the same thing as if someone had registered a website using the name and the identity of someone else.

They end up explaining that there is a risk of confusion between his website, and the official website of the French gvt.

Thus, web.com decided to transfer the website as the French gvt was the new legal owner of these trademarks.

There is no bad faith in it. He used these trademarks for a while, but when their legit owner decided to stop him, it did and that's it.

The two legal decisions provided on his website are quite clear.

> The French gvt sued him to transfer these trademarks.

They are only trademarks within France. Country names cannot be trademarked internationally as Iceland has found versus the Icelamd chain of supermarkets.

As far as I'm aware, French court does not have any jurisdiction over web.com - therefore the transfer was unfounded.

As a matter of fact, they do. They can apply Trademark Law, and thus their decision apply in the US - thanks to Trademark treatises.

Thus, once they had decided on an the registrar had really no option but to oblige and transfer the website.

The registrar could have contested the decision and asked for its exequatur in the US, but it would have been a waste of time, and he could have been subject to penalties in France, but also in the US.

That's not how American law works. An American registrar is under no obligation to comply before American judicial review. Nothing in American law would have subjected them to penalties if they'd told France to go get an American court order, which they would happily comply with. France can of course impose whatever penalties it wants (and collect them to the best of its abilities). I'm pretty sure it works the same in the other direction, too.

Do judgments work like that within the EU? I'm wondering if the unusually close relationship among EU countries gives EU citizens a misleading picture of international law in general.

> Before a US court will enforce a judgment issued by a foreign court, the US court must first recognize the judgment. To “recognize” a foreign judgment means to make it equal to any other judgment issued by a US court. A foreign judgment recognized by a US court—a domesticated judgment—has the same authority as a judgment first issued in the United States. Foreign judgments cannot be enforced in the US before they are recognized.

https://harrisbricken.com/blog/recognition-foreign-judgments...

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