Letter from France

This is the very first Letter from France. The authors hope to produce such a letter once every six months. The aim is to provide an overview of recent developments in French intellectual property law. The authors will therefore refer to interesting cases, new legislation and other interesting legal developments in relation to copyright, designs, trade marks and patents. This first Letter from France deals with a series of recent cases concerning copyright. The Mulholland Drive decision is about the difficult relationship between the private copying exemption and technical protection measures. Two Cour de Cassation decisions deal with more traditional copyright issues. One is concerned with the question whether the use of collective satellite aerials amounts to communication to the public and the Place des Terreaux decision deals with the exemption for incidental inclusion of copyright works.The authors hope to discuss the Yahoo saga in relation to the liability of internet service providers, as well as the several trade mark cases that deal with the use by Google of registered trade marks in the next Letter from France. Space permitting, patent issues may even be addressed on that occasion.