MONTREAL—Quebec plans to force businesses with English names to add a touch of French to their offerings, a move that could challenge the global sanctity afforded to a company's trademark and brand.

Coming after a years-long court battle that pitted the French-language police against retailers like Gap, Walmart and Best Buy, Quebec Culture Minister Hélène David said she will bring forward new regulations this fall requiring companies with foreign names to add wording in French to their exterior signs. That could be a generic term like “café” or a slogan that helps to protect and promote the French heritage of the province. Whatever the company opts for must be at least as visible as the trademark that companies have worked years and invested millions to promote.

“It is a gesture of courtesy, of politeness and above all collective insurance in the preservation of our francophone face,” David told reporters in Quebec City.

Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard forecast the decision last week and it has already fired up some Quebec anglophones who see the move as an attack on their rights, not to mention a foolish strategy for economic growth.

“The bullying needs to stop. Not only because it is right to stop it, but because we can't afford any more economic contraction,” read a weekend column in the English-language newspaper, The Suburban, authored by editor-in-chief Beryl Wajsman.

Wajsman, a longtime journalist, political organizer and anglophone activist, noted that a number of retailers have opted to block access to their websites in Quebec rather than translate the content into French to comply with language laws. He worries that the same will happen with ubiquitous retailers like Old Navy, Costco, Guess and Toys 'R' Us if they are forced to choose between respecting the laws in a province of eight million people or diluting a internationally-recognized trademark.

“A market of eight million does not frighten a global company,” Wajsman wrote.

The problem is not new but it has, somewhat surprisingly, come to a head during the reign of Couillard, a worldly and bilingual former brain surgeon who been harshly criticized for a perceived failure to take seriously the fears that French is slowly drowning in a sea of English voices.

Couillard has downplayed the gravity of the coming changes, using the example of his favourite coffee shop, Second Cup, which explains for the sake of anyone who doesn't get it from the steaming coffee cup in its logo that it specializes in “les cafés.”

“Everyone knows that they sell coffee, but they're saying: 'We know the environment we are operating in and the existence of the French majority.' So we think this kind of message to the population is necessary,” Couillard said.

The companies have resisted because of their huge investments in the promotion of their registered trademarks and because Quebec's French-language charter as it is currently written does not require any changes, according to two successive Quebec court rulings that sided with a group of retailers over the Office québécois de la langue française, the agency tasked with upholding provincial language laws.

The judges found that the laws exempting trademarks both from being forcibly translated into French or diluted with a French description of the services or products on offer have been in place since at least 1993. On top of that, the companies involved in the case have all received government certificates indicating that they conformed to the language laws. The dispute, the courts rules, was based solely on a change in how Quebec had decided to interpret the law.

Quebec Justice Minister Stéphanie Vallée said in a statement Wednesday that preceded word of the impending rule changes, that the government would not appeal the decision to a higher court.

But changing the law may end up presenting new headaches and legal problems for the Quebec government.

In a review of the matter from as far back as 2000, the Conseil supérieur de la langue francaise, an advisory body, noted that a trademark registered by a Canadian company with the federal government has recognition and protection the world over thanks to intellectual property agreements between Ottawa and other countries.

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It noted there had been an increase in companies getting around language laws by seeking to trademark their English name. But these same protections ensure that Montreal's world famous Cirque du Soleil isn't forced to call itself Sun Circus when it pitches a tent for shows in Las Vegas.

“It is difficult to call into question a global legal process that began more than 100 years ago,” the Conseil noted in its review, adding that China considered forcing companies to translate their trademarked names but eventually gave up.

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