The
Paris Court of Appeal, in its judgment dated 28 February 2008 on the Liv
Hydravlika matter, ruled that the question as to the validity of industrial
property rights, raised as a subsidiary issue in a contractual dispute, could
be submitted to arbitration. The Law dated 17 May 2011 for the simplification
and improvement of parties’ rights, which amended the provisions of the
Intellectual Property Code relating to arbitration, does not appear to have
affected this approach. The judgment of the Cour de Cassation of 12 June 2013
in the Victocor Technologies matter even implicitly supported this. This article
proposes to analyse the precise content of the French approach, and thereafter
to assess its value, by reviewing its virtues, but also the flaws which have
been attributed to such solution.