Emmanuel Gillet

Unfair Competition

Economic parasitism: the application for a trademark to attract competitors’ consumers on Amazon

Jeco Distribution had been selling licence-plate accessories under the sign JECO since 2013, with a trademark registered in class 9 and a strong presence on Amazon. A competitor — Univers Graphique and its manager — filed the sign JECO as a trademark in 2017 for products it had never marketed under that name, then had Jeco's Amazon listings taken down. The Lille Judicial Court (28 February 2020) drew the consequences of the fraud: under Article L.712-6 of the Intellectual Property Code and the maxim fraus omnia corrumpit, a registration is fraudulent when the trademark is diverted from its function of indicating origin with the intention of harming a third party — here, of confiscating a sign necessary to the competitor's activity. The court ordered the transfer of the trademark and awarded EUR 9,000 in damages for parasitism: filing a competitor's sign to capture the visibility it created on Amazon means profiting from its investments without spending a cent.

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Unfair Competition

Alibaba wins unfair competition action against click farm company in China

On 6 June 2019, the Hangzhou Intermediate People's Court ruled in favour of Alibaba in an unfair competition action against Hangzhou Meiming Technology, operator of the 'meilipa' platform. Behind a facade of free product testing for consumers, meilipa organised click farming: it steered its users towards targeted purchases on Taobao and Tmall so that dishonest sellers could artificially inflate their transaction volumes and credibility ratings, the payments transiting through the defendant. The court held that this artificial boosting of untrustworthy merchants' reputation distorted competition — in the first action brought by an e-commerce company under China's revised unfair competition law — and awarded Taobao 2 million RMB (about EUR 252,000). Beyond the amount, the decision matters for brand owners: the reliability of ratings and reviews is a pillar of marketplace trust, and platforms now have judicial backing to pursue those who corrupt it.

Court Litigation · Marketplace Enforcement

22 September 2019

Initially published on iptwins.com

Third-Party Liability

Lacoste v Shein: When a Platform Can No Longer Hide Behind Hosting Status

A platform is not one legal object. In Lacoste v Roadget Business Pte. Ltd. and Infinite Styles Services Co. Ltd. (Paris, Pôle 5 ch. 1, 8 July 2026, RG 25/12454), the Court of Appeal refused to let the operators of shein.com shelter behind the hosting exemption of Article 6 of the Digital Services Act: goods “sold by Shein”, Shein labels and packaging, and the Commission’s designation of the service as a very large online platform revealed a hybrid activity, and the characterisation attached not to the platform as a whole but to the role actually played in the disputed transactions. The judgment reaches beyond the twenty offending products. “Lacoste”, typed into the internal search engine, infringes the word marks; “crocodile”, a free word, grounds unfair competition and parasitism. Interim damages rise from €30,000 to €300,000 — the defendants’ own failure to disclose their turnover counting against them — and the measures run across the European Union.

Counterfeiting · Court Litigation · European Digital Law · Marketplace Enforcement · Trademark Law

28 August 2026

Initially published on iptwins.com

Domain Name Law

COSHIELD: The Scope of the UDRP in Trademark Disputes

Not every dispute involving a trade mark and a domain name amounts to cybersquatting. In Polyco Healthline Limited v. David Beatson (WIPO Case No. D2026-1893), the panelist denied the complaint brought against coshield.com, a domain used since 2020 to sell personal protective equipment in the very sector where the complainant has exploited its SHIELD trade mark since 1997, and despite a settlement agreement concluded between the parties in 2021. The decision turns on the moment of acquisition: created in 2014, the domain name appears to have changed hands in May 2020, at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the combination of “Co” and “Shield” could describe the business rather than target Polyco. The evidence being “finely balanced”, bad faith was not established. This article examines why trade mark infringement and cybersquatting are two paths that do not necessarily converge.

Cybersquatting · Domain Name Law · Trademark Law · UDRP

23 August 2026

Initially published on iptwins.com

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Article Information

Author

Emmanuel Gillet

Publication Date

11 May 2020

Jurisdiction

Topics

Court Litigation · Marketplace Enforcement · Trademark Law

Industry

Retail & E-commerce

Related Decision(s)

Tribunal judiciaire de LilleJeco Distribution c. M. X. et Univers Graphique2020-02-28