Counterfeiting

Under the terms of Article L. 335-2 of the Intellectual Property Code, infringement of an exclusive intellectual property right, whether literary or artistic property (copyright or neighboring rights) or industrial property (patent, trademark, design or model), constitutes infringement. For example, the exchange of files protected by copyright (music, films not in the public domain) is assimilated to the crime of counterfeiting.

Article L. 335-3 of the Intellectual Property Code provides that”any reproduction, representation or dissemination, by any means whatsoever, of a work of the mind in violation of the rights of the author, as defined and regulated by law, is also an offence of counterfeiting”.In other words, any use of a protected work that is not expressly authorized by its author or its rights holders is prohibited.

We invite you to discover here all the articles related to counterfeiting.

Counterfeiting may involve:

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  the civil liability of its author under Article 1382 of the Civil Code, which may lead him to pay damages, calculated according to the damage suffered by the victim;
  

criminal

• liability, penalties of up to 5 years in prison and a fine of €500,000 under the law adopted on 29 October 2007.

Parliament adopted a bill to combat counterfeiting which transposes a directive of 29 April 2004 on the enforcement of intellectual property rights. This text establishes a specialization of the courts of first instance competent to hear actions in the field of intellectual property. The list of the TGIs concerned is set by decree in the Council of State.