The General Court of the EU [official website] held [order, PDF] Tuesday that the privately owned website “france.com” cannot be registered as a private trademark.

The court found that the “conceptual similarity” with a French trademark of the same name prohibited the domain name from being considered a valid trademark.

The decision comes after the private domain owner appealed a previous decision by the EU’s Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) [official website] that came to the same conclusion. The General Court found that:

In the light of the fact that the signs at issue cover identical or similar services and have a particularly high degree of phonetic and conceptual similarity, the Court finds that there is a likelihood of confusion. It follows that, as EUIPO decided, France is entitled to oppose registration of the sign france.com.

While it is typical for a country to seize a web domain that is privately held for “squatting” purposes—that is a private owner essentially does nothing more than purchase a domain name for the purpose of placing ads and hoping for a payout from a company or entity with a similar name—this case is different in that the domain “france.com” was actively used for legitimate private business [Facebook page] purposes for a travel company.

In April the private company filed a lawsuit [complaint, PDF] in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia [official website]. In this US complaint, the private company alleges that the French government lacks the authority to seize the domain name because the company and the domain register, which have been used since 1994, are both US businesses.