CJEU, 10 July 2025: Trade name and company name law is a matter of national law

The Trade Mark Directive does not seek to harmonise at EU Level the national laws relating to trade names, a category to which a company name may belong: in the absence of harmonisation, the protection of trade names is a matter for national law. 

The Trade Mark Directive and the free movement of goods 

• do not preclude a national system which provides, that the exclusive right conferred by a company name allows its proprietor to prohibit a third party from using an identical or similar sign, as a trade name or as a domain name, for goods or services which are identical or similar to those falling within the scope of activities for which its company name is registered, and,
• do not preclude that the failure to use that company name may, under certain conditions, lead to the revocation of that exclusive right and that the proprietor is required to describe and limit the nature of the activities falling within its object with sufficient precision to enable third parties to be effectively informed of them.

IPPT20250710, CJEU, Purefun v Doggy