Blog
The LAZULI Law Firm blog features insights, news, and legal analysis related to its areas of practice. Useful content to help you understand, anticipate, and address your legal challenges.
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Freedom of expression and the right to protection of one’s voice: balancing the interests
April 2021. On a web-radio programme, a well-known commentator from the world of French song laments that record labels no longer launch “handsome” singers or “gorgeous young women”. His remarks, made in particular about a successful young singer, spark a media storm. Three months later, French singer Grand Corps Malade replies in song: his track…
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Disparagement: what a competitor is not allowed to say about your products
One Monday morning, one of my clients received a message from a worried business partner. On a professional Facebook page, a competitor had just posted that his products were “dangerous and ineffective”, his company “on the verge of bankruptcy” and his after-sales service “non-existent”. Within hours, the post is shared, commented on and picked up…
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Trademark registered: four reflexes to avoid losing it
One morning, one of my clients receives a letter from the INPI, the French trademark office. A competitor is seeking revocation of his trademark, registered six years earlier, for part of the goods it covered. The reason is simple: for those goods, the trademark had never genuinely been used. It cost the competitor only 600…
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French Law Protects the Perfume Bottle, Not the Olfactory Rapture
A leading French perfume house launches a new eau de parfum: a celebrated nose, several years of development, a bottle designed by a renowned designer, a major ad campaign featuring an American actress. Three months later, a discount retailer puts an “inspired by” fragrance on the shelves for €6.The press calls it a dupe, social…
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Filing Your Trademark On Your Own: The 6 Mistakes That Cost the Most
Filing a trademark on your own through the INPI portal or the European office’s portal looks simple: a few clicks, a few boxes to fill in, pay the fee, and you’re done. Many entrepreneurs handle these steps themselves to avoid paying attorney’s fees. But they aren’t aware of all the traps involved. A trademark is…
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Influencers and Trademark Law: When a #Hashtag Can Become Expensive
She has 180,000 Instagram followers, a loyal audience, and regular partnerships with fashion brands. Then one morning, she receives a cease-and-desist letter. A major luxury brand accuses her of using its name in several posts and hashtags. She is ordered to remove the content, compensate the alleged damage, and faces the threat of trademark infringement…
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What Is a “Saisie-Contrefaçon”? (Intellectual Property Seizure)
It is 9 o’clock in the morning. A company’s offices are just coming to life when a bailiff, accompanied by police officers and an expert, walks up to the reception desk, court order in hand. Within minutes, computers, commercial documents, and product samples are being examined, copied, and in some cases placed under seal. The…
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Created by No One: Generative AI and the Unravelling of Authorship
The rise of generative artificial intelligence is profoundly disrupting one of the oldest pillars of French intellectual property law: the figure of the author. Long conceived as inseparable from the human person, the creative work now finds itself challenged by productions generated by algorithms capable of composing, writing, and producing music, images, text, and video…
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The birth of LAZULI Law Firm
Some decisions are neither a break nor a leap into the unknown, but rather the result of a slower, almost imperceptible movement, one whose outcome was neither inevitable nor even foreseeable, yet which eventually asserts itself with a kind of quiet clarity. The founding of LAZULI was one such decision. Before the law, I moved…
