Referral C-412/24 (Fauré Le Page, 10 Jun 2024)

1. Must Article 3(1)(g) of Directive 2008/95/EC of 22 October 2008 to approximate the laws of the Member States relating to trade marks be interpreted as meaning that a reference to a fanciful date in a trade mark conveying false
information on the age, reliability and know-how of the manufacturer of the goods and, consequently, on one of the intangible characteristics of those goods is sufficient to establish the existence of actual deceit or a sufficiently serious risk that the consumer will be deceived?
2. If the answer to the first question is in the negative, must that article be interpreted as meaning?
(a) that a trade mark may be regarded as deceptive where there is a likelihood that consumers of the goods and services designated by the trade mark will believe that the proprietor of that trade mark has been producing those goods for centuries, thereby conferring on them a prestigious image, whereas that is not the case?
(b) that, in order to establish the existence of actual deceit or a sufficiently serious risk that the consumer will be deceived, on which a finding that a trade mark is deceptive depends, the trade mark must constitute a sufficiently specific designation of potential characteristics of the goods and services for which it is registered, so that the targeted consumer is led to believe that the goods and services possess certain characteristics which they do not in fact possess?