casalonga logo

Paris Appeal Court - JUGUETES CAYRO S.L. v/GOLIATH B.V.


Decision date

2017-03-29

Decision No.

14/15431

Nature

Competition law

Country

France

Jurisdiction

Paris Appeal Court

Parties

Société JUGUETES CAYRO S.L. v/ Société GOLIATH B.V.



The company JUGUETES CAYRO S.L. was represented, in defence, by Caroline CASALONGA, Attorney at law, assisted by Pascaline VINCENT, Attorney at law.

Issues:

  • - Prohibition measures on the toy market
  • - Important financial consequences

In this case, GOLIATH BV lodged an appeal against the judgment of the Paris Commercial Court of 25 June 2014, which dismissed its claims for unfair competition and parasitism against JUGUETES CAYRO.

GOLIATH B.V. reproached JUGUETES CAYRO S.L. to manufacture and market in France a set of triangular dominoes, which would have reproduced the characteristics and rules of its game TRIOMINO. It asked the Court to overturn the judgment of the first instance and in particular to JUGUETES CAYRO to promote and offer for sale its play DOMINO triangular and to pay it 2 million euros as damages.

JUGUETES CAYRO challenged GOLIATH’s claims on the basis of prior patents on the basis of which TRIOMINO was widely known, the rules of the game that were also part of the public domain and differences between the TRIOMINO game and JUGUETES’s game. It also challenged the evidence provided before the Court to demonstrate the investments made by GOLIATH, which were recent and mostly after the birth of the dispute between the companies.

The Court of Appeal followed the argument developed by CASALONGA for the company JUGUETES CAYRO reminding that in the absence of protected rights, the only imitation was not enough to constitute a fault, that the common elements between the games were common in all dominos games which are not protected by intellectual property rights, so that the fact of reproducing them partially does not constitute an act of parasitism.

GOLIATH was condemned to pay the sum of 21,000 euros under Article 700 between the first and the second instance. GOLIATH appealed against this decision before the Cour de Cassation.