alt Hacker NewsSo, it's a French trademark. Not a lawyer, but from what I remember trademarks need to be registered in every region you want to enforce them in separately.
If the author of "Notepad++ for Mac" doesn't happen to be French as well, is there anything (legally) preventing them from using this trademark?
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If a mac user is in France, does the software they use have to abide by French laws?
"Enforce" yes but the point is that this fork clearly violates broader principles and conventions around respecting clearly active trademarks. Nobody is demanding a lawsuit in French court or any particular legal consequences. But it is totally valid and reasonable for an international company like Cloudflare to crack down on hosting his website: they have French customers.
Also it's really not a finder's-keeper's thing with trademarks and international borders. If someone trademarked Notepad++ in the US and released some janky port with the Notepad++ name, Don Ho could likely still win in US court. Most reasonably knowledgeable US consumers who are plausibly in the market for a Windows text editor are at least superficially familiar with "Notepad++" as the name of a well-regarded software product. I know we travel in certain circles, but there is a reason this guy wants to use "Notepad++" and not "MacnotePlus - A fork of Notepad++ for MacOS." It's a famous name.
That's not correct. You don't have to register a trademark in order for it to be protected, it's just recommended because if you do register it you don't have to separately prove that you have built up brand reputation. That should be pretty easy for a project as old and well-known as this though.
You can enforce an unregistered trademark, but you need evidence that it’s actually yours. Registration makes that easier.