Emmanuel Gillet

Writing on domain names, trade marks and arbitration.

Eight articles and case notes, published in French and English law reviews between 2007 and 2016, mostly on the arbitrability of intellectual property disputes and the governance of the naming system. Since 2022 the writing has taken a shorter form: two issues of News From There, a practitioner journal on brand protection in Web 3.0.

Articles and case notes

Titles appear in their language of publication, with the English title below. Abstracts are in English.

The International Litigation Quarterly — American Bar Association

Arbitrability of Intellectual Property Disputes in China

Summer 2012 · Vol. 28, No. 2 · pp. 7—10 · in English
A short survey of how Chinese law and practice treat the arbitrability of intellectual property disputes, and of the room left to arbitration where the validity of a registered right is at stake.
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La Semaine Juridique, Entreprise et Affaires — LexisNexis

Litiges de propriété intellectuelle. L’apport de la loi de simplification et d’amélioration de la qualité du droit du 17 mai 2011

Intellectual Property Disputes after the Law of 17 May 2011 — with Professor Jean-Michel Bruguière
15 September 2011 · No. 37, Étude 1663 · pp. 41—48 · in French
The article looks at the effects of the French simplification law of 17 May 2011 on intellectual property litigation. It simplifies and harmonises the field on two counts: exclusive jurisdiction over intellectual property disputes goes to the tribunals of first instance, and the scope of arbitrability is expressly widened, whatever the right at issue — copyright, patents, trade marks, geographical indications or plant varieties. Civil claims relating to intellectual property, including related unfair competition issues, may now be settled by arbitration under articles 2059 and 2060 of the Civil Code. The limits of the reform are also marked: whether disputes over the validity of a patent are arbitrable remains unanswered.
With Professor Jean-Michel Bruguière.
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Revue Lamy Droit de l’Immatériel — Wolters Kluwer

L’encadrement du nommage internet à l’épreuve des droits et libertés fondamentaux

The Domain Name Legal Framework Tested against Fundamental Rights — on Constitutional Court decision No. 2010-45 QPC of 6 October 2010
2010 · Vol. 65, No. 2130 · pp. 18—24 · in French
Why the French Constitutional Court held the domain name legal framework incompatible with the Constitution. On a close reading of that framework, the paper agrees with the Court and argues that strong, unqualified protection of intellectual property rights can prevent third parties from exercising fundamental freedoms — freedom of enterprise and freedom of expression among them.
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Revue Lamy Droit de l’Immatériel — Wolters Kluwer

Domaining et sites parking : enjeux et responsabilités

Domaining and Parking Websites: Stakes and Liabilities
2010 · Vol. 62, No. 2056 · pp. 68—72 · in French
Domaining is speculation on domain names — registering or acquiring names that may reproduce a trade mark or a celebrity name, a generic word, or nothing meaningful at all, provided they generate value, whether on resale or through parking pages monetised by advertising links. The paper examines the business model of the companies offering those services and the risks and liabilities of each actor in the chain.
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Revue Lamy Droit des Affaires — Wolters Kluwer

Vigueur et éclat de la clause compromissoire en matière interne

Strength and Glitter of the Arbitration Clause
2010 · Vol. 55, No. 3177 · pp. 65—70 · in French
Read through a decision of the Douai Court of Appeal of 17 September 2009, the paper argues for the robustness of the arbitration clause under French law and the narrow room left to a reluctant party to challenge it before the courts. The decision restates the settled positions of the Cour de cassation on implicit consent to the clause, its precedence over a jurisdiction clause, and the tribunal’s jurisdiction over both pre-bankruptcy claims and tort disputes.
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Petites Affiches

La sentence arbitrale n’est pas exécutoire de plein droit malgré la référence à un règlement d’arbitrage qui prévoit l’exécution de la sentence sans réserve

An Arbitration Award Is Not Enforceable de Plano — note on Cass. civ. 1re, 4 July 2007, Groupe Antoine Tabet
25 September 2007 · No. 192 · pp. 27—29 · in French
A note on two decisions of the Cour de cassation in the same matter, endorsing the Court’s reasoning on three points: an ICC award is not enforceable per se despite the contractual provisions of the rules; a party invoking the precedence of criminal over civil proceedings must show what bearing the former would have on the latter; and the Lugano Convention of 16 September 1988 does not extend to judicial decisions in the field of arbitration.
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Revue Francophone de la Propriété Intellectuelle

À la recherche d’une propriété littéraire et artistique dans la Chine ancienne

Searching for the Roots of Copyright in Ancient China
December 2016 · No. 3 · pp. 49—62 · in French, with abstracts in English and Chinese
Two thousand years of Chinese book history, marked by the steady growth of its market, raise a question: did that market ever produce a perception — or better, a consciousness — from which an idea of literary and artistic property could emerge? The paper looks at how artists, authors and publishers of ancient China regarded the reproduction and imitation of their works, and at whether they could make their voice heard by the authorities. It concludes that a form of literary property does appear to have been recognised, at least locally and in a scattered, embryonic form.
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Versailles International Business Law Review — LexisNexis

Procédures extrajudiciaires de règlement des litiges relatifs aux noms de domaine : quelles perspectives pour l’arbitrage ?

Extrajudicial Procedures to Resolve Domain Name Disputes: What Is the Prospect of Arbitration?
2013 · No. 4 · pp. 145—168 · in French
The UDRP was adopted in 1999 to address the shortcomings of the system then in place. Fifteen years on, the naming space had expanded beyond anything anticipated: ICANN was liberalising the creation of new top-level domains and internationalised domain names were multiplying the available resources — and, with them, the opportunities for cybersquatters. The paper questions the effectiveness of the UDRP model in that environment and argues that international arbitration would be the better mechanism for resolving domain name disputes.
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News From There

A practitioner journal rather than an academic one, published by IP Twins in two issues. It followed what Web 3.0 was doing to brand protection: NFT infringement, blockchain naming systems, and the disputes they produced. Both issues are open access.

IP Twins

News From There — Issue 2

Hermès v Rothschild, and enforcement in tokenised markets
March 2023 · 45 pages · in English
A practitioner journal on brand protection in Web 3.0.

The MetaBirkins verdict of 8 February 2023 (S.D.N.Y.), read at length: trade mark infringement, artistic expression, and what injunctive relief means for an NFT.
Crypto-assets and counterfeiting: jurisdiction and the identification of infringers in decentralised architectures.
Blockchain arbitration: off-chain, on-chain and crowdsourced, against the 1958 New York Convention.
A directory of blockchain domain case law, office decisions (EUIPO, Burberry) and emerging legislation.

With a study on NFTs and trade marks in the metaverse by Leonardo Maria Seri (BMlex).
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IP Twins

News From There — Issue 1

Blockchain naming and the first NFT rulings
December 2022 · 34 pages · in English
A practitioner journal on brand protection in Web 3.0.

The European Parliament study on NFTs and intellectual property.
Blockchain top-level domains and the limits of “first come, first served”.
The Web3 Domain Alliance, and what a coalition of blockchain operators changes for rights holders.
The fight over .wallet: Unstoppable Domains against Handshake and Gateway.
Decentralised domain names: the case for a dialogue between operators and trade mark owners.
Definition of the month: DAO.

With a case note on Juventus v Blockeras by Marco Sandri.
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Teaching →

Courses and seminars on intellectual property, domain names and dispute resolution.

Conferences →

Speaking engagements, panels and presentations at international conferences.

Blog →

Shorter case notes and commentary, in English and in French.