In August 2025, articles brought our former dispute with DC Comics, owner of Batman rights, back into the spotlight: L’informé, le Télégramme, Ouest France.
Batcapt is a company providing products and services for better management of high-voltage Batteries by Capturing data related to their internal state. Through this method, we diagnose, secure, and prevent their degradation.
But what happened, what were we accused of, and what lessons did we learn?
Timeline of Events
August 9, 2024
Filing of the “Batcapt” name with the French National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI)
October 29, 2024
Receipt of an 8-page certified letter from a Parisian Intellectual Property (IP) consulting firm
[…] Among these characters, you cannot ignore the undeniable notoriety of the BATMAN character, […] With this in mind, our client requests that you […] We therefore expect to receive written confirmation that you comply with these legitimate demands accompanied by the requested documents, within eight days following receipt of this letter […] |
October 30, 2024
Confirmation on the INPI website that our filing is indeed blocked following the firm’s request and that the letter is well-founded.
This news naturally generates legitimate concern.
October 31, 2024
We call the consulting firm to indicate that we naturally wish to negotiate to find a solution to the problem
November 1, 2024
We launch two distress calls:
– to Schoolab of the The Future is Neutral innvation hub where we are following an incubation program
– to Poool / la French Tech Rennes Saint Malo with whom we had made contact
November 4, 2024
First exchange with an Intellectual Property expert made available by INPI as part of startup support.
Unfortunately, this expert works for the IP consulting firm that initiated the procedure against us, which prevents him from helping us or providing answers due to his profession’s ethical rules.
November 6, 2024
Second exchange with another Intellectual Property expert who reassures us and provides insight on various points:
– In France, there is no particular deadline to respect for resolving a conflict. Simply, the name filing is blocked. We have time.
– It is normal that we received this request two days before the filing procedure was set to expire. This is a classic strategy aimed at putting pressure on the applicant
– That we must of course negotiate…
– That certain requests are justified, our filing needs to be revised to accommodate IP rules.
November 6, 2024 to novembre 22, 2024
Several exchanges with the IP firm and 2 emails informing us that we were not respecting deadlines and that it was urgent to resolve the problem.
November 22, 2024
Filing of a correction on the INPI website reducing the scope of our trademark application regarding certain domains, including those in conflict with DC Comics activities
December 19, 2024
Logo change on all our materials, particularly the website
January 28, 2025
The Intellectual Property consulting firm agrees to withdraw its opposition following the modifications made
What Were We Accused Of?
Fortunately for many companies working in the battery field whose names often begin with “Bat” the problem was not related to our company name. Two main grievances were raised by DC Comics :
- Overly broad coverage of products associated with “Batcapt”
According to INPI classification, these products belong to different numbered classes.- Class 41 includes training (which we will undoubtedly do someday) but also film production, stage set rental, etc. This is a class we had to abandon.
- For other classes, certain products being quite close to DC Comics activities, we removed them from the requested coverage.
- A logo too similar to those usually associated with Batman.
What Lessons Did We Learn?
First lesson: Appeals against name filings are common and not subject to deadline obligations. Therefore, one should not overestimate the impact of this procedure and raise stress levels too high.
Second lesson: French legal procedures are not those of the United States: they don’t necessarily begin or end with a battle of lawyers. INPI now has a digital filing process that automates this filing and any associated appeals with negotiation phases between parties.
Third lesson: Public service, and particularly INPI, provides free assistance to parties when necessary. We often criticize public service for many things, but we want to praise the excellent service provided by INPI that one would imagine being handled by business lawyers in other countries.
Fourth lesson: Don’t do it again. Since this incident, the information we produce, particularly this website, is scanned by robots operating in the United States. The slightest deviation will be quickly discovered…