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Lefranc, David --- "Historical perspective on criminal enforcement" [2012] ELECD 943; in Geiger, Christophe (ed), "Criminal Enforcement of Intellectual Property" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2012) 101

Book Title: Criminal Enforcement of Intellectual Property

Editor(s): Geiger, Christophe

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781849801461

Section: Chapter 6

Section Title: Historical perspective on criminal enforcement

Author(s): Lefranc, David

Number of pages: 27

Abstract/Description:

It falls to us to inform the reader of the history of the penalties which ensure the protection of intellectual creation. Ideally, this study should be an account of comparative law. But the amplitude of the task would require long years of research and the collaboration of numerous authors. The present contribution is not a substitute for work of that scope. It adopts an essentially French point of view. In France, intellectual property in the modern sense of the term is the result of legislation enacted between 1791 and 1857. The contribution of the twentieth century is to have synthesized the laws. But the invention of the subject happened during the first half of the nineteenth century. It is at this time that treatises uniquely concerning intellectual property appeared. The system of privileges of the Ancien Régime does not constitute an intellectual property law in the strict sense of the term, even if there are several common points. It is possible to draw together privilege and property rights, considering that both give their benefi ciaries exclusive rights. Nevertheless these concepts are not equivalent. Contrefaçon (ie intellectual property infringement) is doubtless the only common factor between the two periods. It was punished before and after the French Révolution. As we shall see, its penal sanctions show remarkable continuity from the invention of printing until the end of the nineteenth century.


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