FRANCE Law and Practice Contributed by: Vanessa Bouchara, Adèle Maier and Louise Lacroix, Cabinet Bouchara
on sale (which is very rare), seizure of litigious goods, provision on damages, blocking of social media accounts or communication of social media/website access, for example, if the claim is sufficiently detailed and the judge considers that the plaintiff has a significant chance of suc - cess. Preliminary injunctive remedies are issued at the plaintiff’s financial risk. This means that if the action is deemed unfounded, the plaintiff will have to compensate the defendant for all losses and harm caused by the injunctive rem - edies. The court can order the plaintiff to post a bond to cover this if applicable. To obtain preliminary injunctive remedies, the trade mark and/or copyright owner would have to file a specific “urgency” action in which it will have to establish its IP rights, clearly identify the behaviour that it considers as infringing its IP rights, and prove that there is a matter of urgen - cy that justifies granting preliminary injunctive remedies. 10.2 Monetary Remedies When determining the amount of monetary dam - ages awarded, the courts assess: • the negative economic consequences of the infringement for the trade mark owner (loss of earnings); • the moral prejudice caused to the trade mark owner; and • the benefits obtained by the defendant. Where there are not enough elements to deter - mine the above, the judge can alternatively allo - cate a lump sum. There are no punitive damages under French law. 10.3 Attorneys’ Fees and Costs The judge may order the losing party to reim - burse the costs and expenses of proceedings
(including attorney’s fees) to the other party. However, the allocated sum is a lump sum and does not, in most cases, correspond to the costs actually incurred. 10.4 Ex Parte Relief The owner cannot obtain damages or other types of relief without initiating a procedure that necessitates notifying the defendant, fol - lowed by adversarial proceedings that allow the defendant to defend itself. 10.5 Customs Seizures of Counterfeits or Parallel Imports At the request of the owner, customs authori - ties can retain products that they suspect to be counterfeit. The right-holders are immediately notified of such detention. The public prosecu - tor is also informed of the said measure by the customs administration. The right-holders then have a short amount of time to request destruction of the products, to initiate civil or criminal proceedings, or to file a complaint with the public prosecutor. For the purposes of initiating legal actions, the plaintiff may obtain from the customs adminis - tration the names and addresses of the consign - or, the importer, the consignee of the detained goods or their holder, as well as images of these goods and information on their quantity, origin, provenance and destination.
11. Appeal 11.1 Appellate Procedure
Infringement decisions can be subject to an appeal before French courts of appeal and, more precisely, the court of appeal that has territo - rial jurisdiction depending on the court of first
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