Lexicon
Action for nullity
Article L.714-3 of the Intellectual Property Code states that “the registration of a trademark shall be declared null and void by a court decision or by a decision of the Director General of the National Institute of Industrial Property, pursuant to Article L.411-4, if the trademark does not meet the conditions laid down in Articles L.711-2, L.711-3, L.715-4 and L.715-9 [du Code de la Propriété Intellectuelle].”
Audit
An audit is an operation consisting of investigations and verifications in order to identify and evaluate the nature and extent of a company’s intellectual property rights, which makes it possible to assess the rights holder’s monopoly of exploitation over its assets.
Author
The author is the person at the origin of the creation of a work of the mind and who has, by the sole fact of his creation, copyright.
Assignment of copyrights
The assignment of copyright is a contract by which the owner of copyright, called the assignor, transfers the ownership of his rights to a third party, called the assignee. The latter will then be vested with all the rights relating to the creation that has been assigned to him, with the exception of the author’s moral rights.
Agent
The intellectual property agent is the person responsible for representing a third party (an individual or a company), its “principal”, in particular before the Intellectual Property Offices, in order to carry out the formalities and acts necessary for the acquisition, maintenance and defense of intellectual property rights.
Abrupt termination of commercial relations
When a commercial relationship is established, it may happen that at a given moment, everything does not go as planned due to the non-performance or contractual breach of one of the parties, thus obliging the other to break off the relationship in a “brutal” manner.
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Brand
A trademark is a distinctive sign that allows its owner (natural person or legal entity) to distinguish its product(s) and/or service(s) from those of other market players, and in particular from its competitors.
Brand degeneration
In law, a trademark is a distinctive sign whose essential function is to indicate to the consumer the origin of the product(s) and/or service(s) it designates so that he can distinguish them from those offered by third-party companies.
Brand licensing
In France, a trademark license agreement is an agreement by which the owner of a trademark (the licensor) sells or assigns the rights to use his trademark to a third party (the licensee), usually in exchange for a royalty, often proportional to the exploitation, also called royalties.
Brand Package
The Trademark Package, which came into force on December 11, 2019 with the “Pact Law” n°2019-486 and was completed by two decisions of the Director General of the INPI on December 11, 2019, is part of the continuity of the compliance of French law with the European Union’s “Trademark Package”, adopted in 2015 through the transposition of Directive (EU) n°2015/2436 of December 16, 2015.
Brand monitoring
A trademark is a distinctive sign which confers on its owner an exclusive right of intellectual property and thus allows him to oppose the use of his trademark by third parties, without his prior authorization.