Monday, July 8, 2019

Folliard-Manguiral and Tréfigny on the Cour de Cassation's Profits Decision

A few weeks ago I published a post titled "Vigand and Raynard on the Cour de Cassation's Profits Decision," discussing a recent article in the May 2019 issue of Propriété Industrielle (pp. 21-25) that included the text of a Cour de cassation decision, Carrera SARL et Texas de France SAS v. Muller et Cie, PIBD No. 1112, III, 120 (Jan. 23, 2019) which I had previously blogged about, with commentary by Privat Vigand and Jacques Raynard.  I realized the other day that I missed another article in the same journal, by Arnaud Folliard-Manguiral and Pascale Tréfigny, on the same case (but published underneath the heading "Marques et autres signes distinctifs," that is, "Marks and other distinctive signs," which is why I didn't read it initially).  The article is titled Les chefs et critères de l'indemnisation en matière de contrefaçon . . .  ("The heads and criteria for compensation in regard to infringement"), and can be found at pp. 25-27.  The authors state that, while the Carrera case involves patent rights, "the sanction for infringement is treated the same way whatever may be the right concerned (author's rights, trademarks, design rights, patents, geographical indications, etc.") (my translation).  They note that there was a failure of proof here on moral prejudice, but that the court recognized that such harm could in principle exist (in the form of loss of credit, reputation, or any other "extrapatrimonial" harm).  They also appear to read the decision as standing for the proposition that it is appropriate to take the infringer's profit into consideration, in crafting an appropriately compensatory remedy.

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