FRANCE Law and Practice Contributed by: Céline Bey and Alexis Augustin, Gowling WLG
application for suspensive affect before the Court of Appeal, which the Court granted con- sidering that the first instance decision was evi- dently incorrect in ordering an injunction against the directors of the infringer. 7. Appeal 7.1 Special Provisions for Intellectual Property Proceedings In France, the right of appeal is granted in all matters against judgments at first instance (Arti- cle 543, CPC). Parties have one month to appeal a first instance decision from the notification date (Articles 528 and 538, CPC). Foreign companies are grant- ed an additional two-month delay (Article 643, CPC). As for Court of Appeal decisions, parties have two months (plus one or two months) to appeal before the Supreme Court (Article 612, CPC). Before the UPC, an appeal may be brought within two months against final decisions of the Court of First Instance and decisions terminating proceedings as regards one of the parties. Moreover, an appeal may be brought within 15 days against: • orders on the use of the language in which the patent was granted as the language of the proceedings; • orders to present and preserve relevant evi- dence in respect of the alleged infringement; • orders requesting a party not to remove from its jurisdiction any assets located therein, or not to deal in any assets, whether located within its jurisdiction or not;
• orders intended to prevent any imminent infringement, to prohibit the continuation of the alleged infringement or to make such continuation subject to the lodging of guaran- tees; and • orders to provide to the applicant information as to the alleged infringement. Orders other than the above may be either the subject of an appeal together with the appeal against the decision (within two months) or appealed with the leave of the court of first instance within 15 days of the court’s decision to that effect. Regarding decisions of the judge-rapporteur relating to preliminary objections, if the pre- liminary objection is allowed the order may be appealed independently from the decision on the merits and within 15 days. If the preliminary objection is rejected, it may only be appealed together with the appeal against the decision on the merits. Lastly, a party adversely affected by a decision of the judge-rapporteur as to costs only may lodge an application for leave to appeal to the Court of Appeal within 15 days of service of the In France, although parties may invoke new arguments and produce new documents or evidence, submitting new claims is prohibited, except in order to have adverse claims dis- missed or to respond to questions arising from disclosure of new facts or a third-party interven- tion (Articles 563 and 564, CPC). The judgment of first instance can be challenged on both legal and factual grounds (Article 561, CPC). decision of the Court. 7.2 Type of Review
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