Intellectual property

In its concern to promote the creative evolution of mankind, the Company aims to encourage creators by granting them, for a limited period, exclusive intangible property rights over their works. But the creator is not isolated. His or her cultural environment influences the nature of his or her work, to such an extent that it has been said of works of art that "Art is only born of life through an earlier art". It is therefore difficult to distinguish a simple reproduction from a genuine creation justifying the attribution of a monopoly.

This distinction is particularly difficult to make because of the wide variety of creative fields and the specific criteria for assessing them. This is why the legislator originally treated them separately.

Thus coexisted laws on copyright, inventions, registered designs, trademarks and service marks. These concepts have now been brought together in a single document: the Intellectual Property Code, which deals more specifically with literary and artistic property and industrial property:

• Literary and artistic property (copyright - related rights) protects works of the mind that may concern both :

  • areas that are essentially artistic and literary in nature, where the notions of uniqueness and authenticity are particularly important:

    • choreographic works,

    • musical compositions,

    • dramatic or dramaticomusical works,

    • audiovisual works,

    • conferences, speeches, pleadings,

    • drawings, paintings, works of architecture, sculptures, engravings,

    • graphics,

    • illustrations,

    • plans, sketches and artwork.

  • fields open to industrial exploitation in which the works are assimilated to products intended to be manufactured or published in multiple copies:

    • works of applied art,

    • seasonal clothing industry creations,

    • software.

• Industrial property protects :

  • industrial creations which involve a creative act of the mind, and which have a utilitarian purpose, i.e. :

    • inventions and technical knowledge (trade secrets, semiconductors, plant varieties),

    • applied art designs,

  • ...