63Accordingly, the applicant cannot rely on the mere fact that the earlier marks were no longer used in order to rebut the finding that the former proprietor had been acting in bad faith at the time of registration. As has already been determined, the evidence in the present case establishes that registration of the sign at issue was deliberately sought in order to create an association with the earlier marks and to take advantage of their reputation on the motor vehicle market, even to compete with those earlier marks if they were re-used by the intervener in the future. In that regard, it was not for the former proprietor to divine the intervener’s future commercial intentions as proprietor of the earlier marks, which were regularly renewed; nor was it even for the former proprietor to conclude, in the absence of an application for a declaration of invalidity with respect to the earlier marks, that the intervener ‘did not have the status of a proprietor worthy of protection.’ Moreover, without it even being necessary to determine the accuracy of OHIM’s argument before the General Court that it was common on the car market for marks which had not been used for quite a long time to be re-used, in limited editions, for car enthusiasts, it must be stated that the article published on 2 September 2008 in a daily newspaper, republished online by the Internet Autohaus website and an extract from which is attached to the former proprietor’s letter of 26 December 2008 to OHIM, shows that he was aware — at the latest by that date and without that knowledge leading him to surrender his right to the contested mark — that the intervener planned to re-use marks ‘such as Talbot’, in particular for low price vehicles, following — according to that article — in that connection, the example of Renault, which had revived its Dacia mark. Accordingly, it could not be ruled out that the intervener might also seek to re-use its SIMCA mark.
Source: EUR-Lex, © European Union, 1998-2026. Reuse authorised under Decision 2011/833/EU.