The Superior Court of Québec (Court) has ruled that public signs bearing trade-marks in a language other than French do not need to be translated into French or accompanied by French generic language, as previously asserted by the Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF).
Section 58 of Québec’s
Charter of the French Language (Charter) requires that public signs and commercial advertising must be in French. Subsection 25(4) of the
Regulation respecting the language of commerce and business (
Regulation) provides an exception for businesses to display recognized trade-marks on public signs and commercial advertising in a language other than French if there is no French-version trade-mark.
For many years, the OQLF did not object to the display of English language trade-marks on public signs by retailers. However, in 2010 the OQLF altered this position and since then considers the display of a trade-mark that is also a business name on public signs as the display of a business name. The OQLF asserted that, pursuant to section 27 of the
Regulation, a business name may appear in a language other than French
provided that it is accompanied by generic language in French (emphasis added). Retailers received notices from the OQLF requiring the addition of generic language in French.
In 2012, a group of retailers launched a lawsuit against the Province of Québec to confirm that the display of a trade-mark on public signs and commercial advertising in a language other than French when there was no French version trade-mark did not violate the
Charter and
Regulation. In siding with the retailers, the Court recognized that although a business name and a trade-mark can be synonymous, they are two distinct legal concepts. Accordingly, the Court ruled that section 27 of the
Regulation governing the display of business names did not apply to recognized trade-marks.
For the reasons for judgment in
Magasins Best Buy ltée c Québec (Procureur general) 2014 QCCS 1427 (
en français) see:
http://canlii.ca/t/g6h3w
Summary by:
Lauren Lodenquai
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