L’auteur d’une oeuvre de l’esprit au Burkina Faso jouit d’un faisceau de droits reconnus par le droit positif. Ainsi, des droits aussi bien moraux que patrimoniaux lui sont octroyés. Dans le cadre de la mise en oeuvre de ces droits, un mécanisme est mis en place. Il consiste à la perception et à la répartition des droits de l’auteur sur son oeuvre. Cependant, le poids de la tradition, l’analphabétisme des populations et la méconnaissance de la propriété littéraire et artistique entravent conséquemment le bon déroulement du mécanisme. Ces facteurs socio-culturels concourent à la violation massive des droits d’auteur. En effet, les droits du créateur s’en trouvent fortement affectés tant l’exploitation illégale des oeuvres a atteint des proportions fort inquiétantes. Ainsi, l’auteur est pris en tenaille entre une société réfractaire et une loi obsolète. En effet, la loi n° 032/AN/99 du 22 décembre 1999 portant protection de la propriété littéraire et artistique au Burkina Faso est, à bien des égards, en déphasage avec l’environnement juridique contemporain. Il convient donc de procéder à une relecture de ce texte pour une protection optimale des droits de l’auteur burkinabé d’une oeuvre de l’esprit. Il convient, également, de mettre l’accent sur la sensibilisation des populations afin de changer la perception erronée de celles-ci de la propriété littéraire et artistique / The author of a work of the spirit in Burkina Faso enjoys a bundle of rights recognized by positive law. Thus, both moral and patrimonial rights are granted. As part of the implementation of these rights, a mechanism is put in place. It consists in the perception and the distribution of the rights of the author on his work. However, the weight of the tradition, the illiteracy of the populations and the ignorance of the literary and artistic property consequently hinder the smooth running of the mechanism.These socio-cultural factors contribute to the massive violation of copyright. Indeed, the rights of the creator are strongly affected as the illegal exploitation of works has reached very disturbing proportions. Thus, the author is caught between a refractory society and an obsolete law.Indeed, Law No. 032 / AN / 99 of 22 December 1999 on the protection of literary and artistic property in Burkina Faso is, in many respects, out of step with the contemporary legal environment. It is therefore appropriate to re-read this text for an optimal protection of the rights of the Burkinabe author of a work of the mind. Emphasis should also be placed on sensitizing the population to change their misperception of literary and artistic property

Pourquoi les films de cinéma sont-ils souvent attribués à des auteurs alors même que leurs génériques énumèrent des dizaines de noms propres et de noms de métiers ? A la suite de Michel Foucault et de sa définition de la « fonction-auteur » comme forme d’appropriation des discours, cette thèse étudie la genèse et l’existence des auteurs de films au prisme des luttes de définition de leurs droits de propriété. Plutôt que de considérer les auteurs de cinéma comme ceux qui « font » les films ou comme une fiction occultant le caractère collectif de leur fabrication, elle montre que les auteurs sont les produits d’une division du travail cinématographique et des rapports de domination qui la traversent. Ce travail, inscrit dans une perspective de sociologie historique, adopte un référentiel binational centré sur la France et les Etats-Unis, où les auteurs de films ne disposent pas des mêmes droits. Il vise à objectiver les dimensions nationales, internationales et transnationales de l’appropriation des films. La période étudiée débute au moment où des personnes et des groupes ont été définis juridiquement comme des auteurs de cinéma : dès les années 1900.La première partie de ce texte est consacrée à la définition du droit de propriété des films depuis l’émergence du cinéma jusqu’à l’adoption de la loi du 11 mars 1957 et du Copyright Act de 1976. Après des décennies de débats, ces lois ont défini différemment l’identité et les droits des auteurs de films. A partir de publications juridiques, cinématographiques et parlementaires, on étudie ces lois comme les résultats d’un travail de codification structuré par des normes préexistantes et par les relations entre les acteurs qui ont participé à leur rédaction. Le développement du droit de propriété cinématographique est à la fois la cause et la conséquence de la constitution d’un espace de négociation regroupant des professionnels du droit, des hauts fonctionnaires, des professionnels de la politique et des organisations professionnelles du cinéma, dont certaines se sont constituées dans le but de défendre le statut d’auteur de leurs membres. La deuxième partie de la thèse prolonge et dépasse l’étude du droit de propriété en analysant l’appropriation des films comme une relation structurée par la division du travail cinématographique et social. Les luttes de définition de l’auteur de film qui ont débuté dans les années 1910 ont contribué à la hiérarchisation du personnel cinématographique et à la différenciation de la valeur cinématographique par rapport à d’autres formes de valeur économique et artistique. Des témoignages, autobiographies et publications cinématographiques permettent de montrer que l’attribution des films à des auteurs dépend de diverses relations de production, de diffusion et de valorisation des films, comme la répartition des tâches et du pouvoir entre le personnel, les incertitudes et inégalités qui structurent les trajectoires des prétendants au statut d’auteur et les vertus cognitives et distinctives de la fonction-auteur employée par les critiques et une fraction des spectateurs. On mobilise pour cela les travaux de Pierre Bourdieu sur les champs de production culturelle, d’Howard Becker sur les mondes de l’art et d’autres recherches sur les professions et artistiques et non-artistiques. En outre, la thèse constate que les hiérarchies professionnelles du cinéma se sont construites à l’intersection de rapports de domination communs à différents domaines d’activité. Par exemple, le genre a servi à hiérarchiser les groupes professionnels, à répartir le travail cinématographique et à exclure les femmes de certains métiers du cinéma. Le cinéma a produit d’immenses inégalités de richesse qui ont attisées les luttes de définition de l’auteur et accru le prestige de certains métiers. La troisième partie est centrée sur les cinéastes et leurs mobilisations autour du droit de propriété des films depuis les années 1960. / Why are motion pictures often attributed to authors – or “filmmakers” – while dozens of names and occupations appear in film credits? Following Foucault’s definition of authorship as a form of appropriation, this dissertation focuses on copyright law and authorship battles in order to explain the origins and existence of film authors. Rather than considering authors as the individuals who “make” movies or as a fiction overshadowing the collective nature of filmmaking, I show that the attribution of films to authors is the result of the division of filmmaking labor and its power relations. This research uses a sociohistorical perspective and a transnational approach centered on the United States and France, where film authors are not granted the same authorship rights. It shed lights on the national, international and transnational dimensions of the appropriation of motion pictures. This study starts when film authors first appeared in copyright law: as early as the 1900s.The first part of this dissertation focuses on the writing of motion pictures’ property rights from the birth of cinema to the passing of the French copyright law of 1957 and of the Copyright Act of 1976. After decades of battles, these laws provided different definitions of film authors and granted them with different rights. Using legal publications, congressional records and reports, as well as film journals, I study French and American laws as the results of a codification process shaped by preexisting law and by the cooperation and power relation between the actors who participated in their writing. The development of motion pictures’ property rights are the cause and consequence of the constitution of a space for negotiation between lawyers, public officials, politicians and film organizations. I explain that French and American copyright norms were structured by legal expertise, competition between lawyers, relations between film organizations and the unequal economic, legal and political power of these organizations. A study of the revisions of the Berne Convention for the protection of literary and artistic works also show the interdependency between national and international norms of film authorship and authorship.The second part of the dissertation study the appropriation of motion pictures as a social relation based on the division of filmmaking labor and social labor. Film authorship battles which started in the 1910s contributed to the creation of professional hierarchies and to the differentiation of film value from other forms of economic and artistic value. I use various writings of film professionals, along with other sources, to show that film authorship was shaped by various aspects of film production, dissemination and reception (including the power relations between film professionals, the diversity of film careers and the uses of authors’ names by film critics and audiences). To study the division of filmmaking labor, I use Pierre Bourdieu’s research on cultural fields, Howard Becker’s work on art worlds as well as scholarship on professions. The dissertation also shows that the professional hierarchies of motion picture production interrelate with various forms of domination common to other fields. This dissertation is meant to be useful for scholars interested in the history of copyright law, motion pictures, authorship, the division of (artistic) labor, professions and transnational approaches.

Après les secteurs de la musique et de l’audiovisuel, c’est au tour du monde de l’édition de connaître sa révolution numérique. Le bon fonctionnement des industries culturelles repose notamment sur une législation ancienne en matière de propriété intellectuelle : le droit d’auteur. Celui-ci est appréhendé en économie comme le garant d’un équilibre subtil entre le maintien de l’incitation à la création des auteurs et la bonne diffusion de leurs œuvres. L’irruption du numérique bouleverse l’environnement économique dans lequel s’applique le droit d’auteur et en modifie donc les effets traditionnels. Cette thèse de doctorat en économie vise ainsi à saisir ces nouvelles conséquences sur le marché du livre afin d’évaluer la pertinence du droit d’auteur dans sa forme actuelle ainsi que celle de son éventuelle réforme. L’analyse des deux versants du droit d’auteur montre qu’il ne génère pas les mêmes effets dans l’univers du livre numérique que dans celui du papier : malgré l’abaissement des contraintes économiques, subsiste la rigidité du cadre juridique qui ne permet ni l’assurance du maintien de la rémunération des auteurs ni le saisissement des opportunités de diffusion du numérique. C’est pourquoi nous nous interrogeons sur l’avenir du droit d’auteur en proposant à la fois quelques principes généraux pour la forme future d’un droit d’auteur efficace et un exemple de disposition de droit d’auteur renouvelé qui permettrait de se saisir des opportunités ouvertes. / After the music and the audiovisual industries, it is the turn of the publishing world to start its digital revolution. The proper functioning of the cultural industries is based on a specific and old intellectual property law: the copyright. Economics usually identifies it as the guarantor of a subtle balance between the incentive for the creation of authors and good dissemination of their works. The emergence of digital technology modifies the economic environment in which copyright applies and therefore alters its traditional effects. This doctoral thesis in economics aims at seizing such new consequences on the book market in order to assess the relevance of copyright in its current form and its possible revision. The analysis of the two aspects of copyright shows that it does not produce the same effects in the market of digital books than in the traditional one: despite the decrease of economic constraints, the current legal framework remains rigid and challenges both the stability of author’s remuneration and the sound management of the dissemination opportunities on the digital book market. That is why we discuss some general principles applicable to an effective copyright and suggest some guidelines for the renewal of the copyright regulation allowing to seize opportunities offered by the digital technology both in terms of encouraging the creation and distribution of books.

Le rôle des communautés a été intentionnellement négligé dans l’analyse les modèles d'affaires de la pornographie mainstream (Darling, 2014), nous soutenons cependant qu’il est essentiel à la production de pornographie alternative. Le but de cette thèse consiste alors à comprendre le rôle des communautés et des entrepreneurs dans la production de pornographie sex-positive dans un contexte où le régime de propriété intellectuelle est faible. Nous utilisons une méthodologie qualitative pour aborder cette question, afin de documenter l'activité communautaire et entrepreneuriale de cette niche. Nous concluons que le contenu pornographique sex-pos est exploité principalement par des moyens informels, fondés sur des motivations intrinsèques et des mécanismes de réputation. Plus précisément, ces communautés jouent un rôle central dans la création de contenu protégé par le droit d'auteur, car ils agissent comme des instruments d'exploitation et d'appropriation de la propriété intellectuelle. / Business models for mainstream porn were extensively explained by Darling (2014).While the role of communities was intentionally overlooked for this segment of the industry, I argue that it is central to the production of alternative pornographies. The research question, then, consists in investigating the role of creative communities and entrepreneurs in producing digital sex-positive pornography in a context of a weak intellectual property regime. I used a qualitative method to tackle this question,in order to document community and entrepreneurial activity in the sex-positive niche. As a conclusion, I find that sex-pos pornographic content is specifically exploited mostly through informal means, based on intrinsic motivation and reputational mechanisms. More specifically, these communities and entrepreneurs are central to the creation of copyrighted content, as they act as informal instruments of intellectual property exploitation and appropriation.

La promotion de l’innovation est une valeur pour différents pays. À cette fin, ils font usage de diverses techniques juridiques pour inciter les entreprises à viser et à générer de nouveaux produits, services ou technologies. Au Brésil, la propriété intellectuelle est considérée comme une des institutions juridiques les plus aptes à préserver l’intérêt des entreprises à continuer à innover. Cependant, la période suivant l’accord ADPIC a révélé que la propriété intellectuelle a failli à sa tâche de consolider de modèle de développement par l’innovation dans le pays. Cette frustration n’est un phénomène limité au Brésil, comme nous le percevons en évaluant d’autres économies héritières du sous-développement. Au lieu d’une ample diffusion technologique, nous observons le renforcement d’une espèce de «cartel de la connaissance», avec une influence mondiale. La surprotection des droits de propriété intellectuelle s’ajoute au discours de la réduction de l’intervention concurrentielle, découlant de l’influence de l’École de Chicago. La thèse part du présupposé que ce contexte décrit n’est pas en accord avec l’idéologie constitutionnellement adoptée au Brésil, nécessitant de promouvoir une action renouvelée du Conseil Administratif de Défense Économique (CADE). La présente recherche a pour objectif de formuler une fonction régulatrice de l’innovation par l’application du droit brésilien de la concurrence. L’enquête a eu un caractère interdisciplinaire, impliquant plus particulièrement des connaissances du droit et de l’économie. Nous avons conduit une analyse des jugements rendus par les autorités de la concurrence brésilienne et européennes relatifs à la protection de l’innovation et des droits de propriété intellectuelle. L’analyse comparative avec l’expérience européenne a permis de constater que les apports de l’économie industrielle contemporaine peuvent introduire des analyses économiques plus réalistes, sans perdre de vue la sécurité juridique dans l’intervention concurrentielle. Ainsi, nous comprenons que le CADE présente des compétences constitutionnelles et légales pour intervenir, de façon renouvelée, dans des cas impliquant l’industrie de haute technologie, en privilégiant les structures économiques plus inclusives et en réduisant les barrières à l’entrée des marchés. / The promotion of innovation is a value widely pursued by the most different countries, which implement various legal techniques to ensure the necessary incentives for companies that succeed in generating new products, services and technologies. In Brazil, intellectual property is considered one of the most suitable legal institutes to better preserve the interest of companies in continuing to innovate. However, the period following Brazil’s accession to the TRIPS Agreement revealed that it did not meet the expectations of consolidating the innovation development model in the country. This frustration is not a phenomenon restricted to Brazil, as one can perceive in evaluating other economies with inheritances of underdevelopment. In lieu of a broad technological diffusion, what was observed is the consolidation of a "knowledge cartel," with global influence. The "overprotection" of intellectual property rights is added to the narrative of a reduction in competitive intervention, resulting from the influence of the Chicago School. Thus, this thesis assumes that the context previously described is not in accordance with the constitutionally adopted ideology, making it necessary to promote a renewed action of the Brazilian Administrative Council of Economic Defense (CADE, in Portuguese). The research aimed to formulate a regulatory function of innovation by means of the Brazilian Competition Law mechanisms. The research had an interdisciplinary character, involving, especially, knowledge of Law and Economy. An analysis of cases judged by Brazilian and European competition authorities on the protection of innovation and intellectual property rights was carried out. The comparative analysis with the European experience showed that the contributions of the contemporary industrial economy can introduce more realistic economic analyzes, without losing sight of the legal security in the competitive intervention. Thus, it is understood that CADE has constitutional and legal powers to intervene, in a renewed way, in cases involving the high technology industry, prioritizing more inclusive economic structures and reducing high barriers to entry in the markets in question. / A promoção da inovação é um valor amplamente perseguido pelos mais diferentes países, os quais se utilizam de diversas técnicas jurídicas para garantir os estímulos necessários às empresas que tenham sucesso em gerar novos produtos e serviços ou novas tecnologias. No Brasil, considera-se a propriedade intelectual como um dos institutos jurídicos mais aptos a preservar o interesse das empresas em continuar inovando. Entretanto, o período subsequente à adesão ao Acordo TRIPS revelou que este não cumpriu com as expectativas de consolidar o modelo de desenvolvimento via inovação no país. Essa frustração não é fenômeno restrito ao Brasil, conforme se percebe ao avaliar outras economias com heranças do subdesenvolvimento. No lugar da ampla difusão tecnológica, o que se verificou foi a consolidação de uma espécie de “cartel do conhecimento”, com influência global. Assim, a “superproteção” dos direitos de propriedade intelectual se soma à narrativa de redução de intervenção concorrencial, decorrente da influência da Escola de Chicago. A presente tese parte do pressuposto de que esse contexto descrito não está de acordo com a ideologia constitucionalmente adotada, fazendo-se necessário promover uma atuação renovada do Conselho Administrativo de Defesa Econômica (CADE). A pesquisa teve como objetivo formular uma função reguladora da inovação por meio da aplicação do Direito Brasileiro da Concorrência. Para tanto, a investigação teve caráter interdisciplinar, envolvendo, especialmente, conhecimentos do Direito e da Economia. Foi realizada uma análise de casos julgados pelas autoridades da concorrência brasileira e europeias, versando sobre a proteção da inovação e de direitos de propriedade intelectual. Em face disso, a análise comparativa com a experiência europeia permitiu constatar que os aportes da Economia Industrial contemporânea podem introduzir análises econômicas mais realistas, sem perder de vista a segurança jurídica na intervenção concorrencial. Assim, infere-se que o CADE apresenta competências constitucionais e legais para intervir, de maneira renovada, em casos que envolvam a indústria de alta tecnologia, priorizando estruturas econômicas mais inclusivas e reduzindo as elevadas barreiras a entrada.

La thèse vise à examiner l’applicabilité des règles du droit de la concurrence, comme une solution alternative aux solutions existantes de la propriété intellectuelle dans le cas spécifique d'un de refus du titulaire d’un tel brevet. Sont étudiés: les solutions existantes, l'étendue de la protection conférée par un tel brevet, et si un tel refus du titulaire d’un brevet sur une séquence d’ADN est donc examiné en tant que pratique potentiellement répréhensible en vertu du droit de la concurrence. / Doctorat en droit / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

1. The context: The European patent system has been affected by substantial changes over the past three decades, which have raised vigorous debates at different levels. The main objective of the present dissertation is to contribute to these debates through an exploratory analysis of different changes in patenting practices – in particular the way applications are drafted and filed to patent offices –, their drivers, association with the value of patents, and potential impact on the patent system. The coming essays are therefore empirical in their essence, but are inspired by economic motivations and concerns. Their originality is threefold: it resides in the novelty of the main questions discussed, the comprehensive database specifically built to address them, and the range of statistical methods used for this purpose. The main argument throughout these pages is that patenting practices have significantly evolved in the past decades and that these developments have affected the patent system and could compromise its ability to fulfil its economic purpose. The economic objective of patents is to encourage innovation and its diffusion through the public disclosure of the inventions made. But their exploitation in the knowledge economy has assumed so many different forms that inventors have supposedly developed new patenting and filing strategies to deal with these market conditions or reap the maximum benefits from their patents. The present thesis aims at better understanding the dimensions, determinants, and some potential consequences of these developing practices.<p><p>2. The evolution: Chapter 2 presents a detailed descriptive analysis of the evolution in the size of patent applications filed to the European Patent Office (EPO). In this chapter, we propose two measures of patent voluminosity and identify the main patterns in their evolution. Based on a dataset with about 2 million documents filed at the EPO, the results show that the average voluminosity of patent applications – measured in terms of the number of pages and claims contained in each document – has doubled over the past 25 years. Nevertheless, this evolution varies widely across countries, technologies and filing procedures chosen by the applicant. This increasing voluminosity of filings has a strong impact on the workload of the EPO, which justifies the need for regulatory and policy actions.<p><p>3. The drivers: The evolution in patent voluminosity observed in chapter 2 calls for a multivariate analysis of its determinants. Chapter 3 therefore proposes and tests 4 different hypotheses that may contribute to explaining the observed inflation in size: the influence of national laws and practices and their diffusion to other countries with the progressive globalization of patenting procedures, the complexification of research activities and inventions, the emergence of new sectors with less established norms and vocabularies, and the construction of patent portfolios. The econometric results first reveal that the four hypotheses are significantly associated with longer documents and are therefore empirically supported. It appears however that the first hypothesis – the diffusion of national drafting practices through international patenting procedures – is the strongest contributor of all, resulting in a progressive harmonization of drafting styles toward American standards, which are longer by nature. The portfolio construction hypothesis seems a less important driver but nevertheless highlights substantial changes in patenting practices. These results raise two questions: Do these evolving patenting practices indicate more valuable patents? Do they induce any embarrassment for the patent system?<p><p>4. Measuring patent value: If the former of these two questions is to be addressed, measures are needed to identify higher value patents. Chapter 4 therefore proposes a review of the state of the art on patent value indicators and analyses several issues in their measurement and interpretation. Five classes of indicators proposed in the literature may be obtained directly from patent databases: the number of countries in which each patent is enforced, the number of years during which each patent has been renewed, the grant decision taken, the number of citations received from subsequent patents, and whether it has been opposed by a third party before the EPO. Because the former two measures are closely connected (the geographical scope of protection and length of maintenance can hardly be observed independently), they have been subjected to closer scrutiny in the first section of chapter 4, which shows that these two dimensions have experienced opposite evolutions. A composite measure – the Scope-Year Index – reveals that the overall trend is oriented downwards, which may suggest a substantial decline in the average value of patents. The second section of chapter 4 returns to the five initial classes of measures and underlines their main patterns. It appears that most of them witness the well-known properties of patent value: a severe skewness and large country and technology variations. A closer look at their relationships, however, reveals a high degree of orthogonality between them and opposite trends in their evolution, suggesting that they actually capture different dimensions of a patent’s value and therefore do not always pinpoint the same patents as being the most valuable. This result strongly discourages the reliance on one of the available indicators only and opens some avenue for the creation of one potential composite index of value based upon the five indicators to maximize the chances of capturing all potentially valuable patents in a large database. The proposed index reflects the intensity of the signal provided by all 5 constituting indicators on the potential value of each patent. Its declining trend reflects a rarefaction of this signal on average, leading to different plausible interpretations.<p><p>5. The links with patent value: Based upon the six indicators of value proposed in chapter 4 (the five classical ones plus the composite), the question of the association between filing strategies and the value of patents may be analysed. This question is empirically addressed in chapter 5, which focuses on all EPO patents filed between 1990 and 1995. The first section presents a comprehensive review of the existing evidence on the determinants of patent value. The numerous contributions in the field differ widely along three dimensions (the indicator of value chosen as dependent variable, the sampling methodology, and the set of variables tested as determinants), which have translated into many ambiguities across the literature. Section 2 proposes measures to identify different dimensions of filing strategies, which are essentially twofold: they relate to the routes followed by patent filings toward the EPO (PCT, accelerated processing), and to their form (excess claims, share of claims lost in examination), and construction (by assembly or disassembly, divisional). These measures are then included into an econometric model based upon the framework provided by the literature. The proposed model, which integrates the set of filing strategy variables along with some of the classical determinants, is regressed on the six available indicators separately over the full sample. In addition, the sensitivity of the available results to the indicator and the sampling methodology is assessed through 18 geographic and 14 industrial clustered regressions and about 30 regressions over random samples for each indicator. The estimates are then compared across countries, industries and indicators. These results first reveal that filing strategies are indicative of more valuable patents and provide the most stable determinants of all. And third, the results do confirm some classical determinants in their positive association with patent value, but highlight a high degree of sensitivity of most of them to the indicator or the sample chosen for the analysis, requiring much care in generalizing such empirical results.<p><p>6. The links with patent length: Chapter 6 focuses on one particular dimension of patent value: the length of patents. To do so, the censored nature of the dependent variable (the time elapsed between the filing of a patent application and its ultimate fall into the public domain) dictates the recourse to a survival time model as proposed by Cox (1972). The analysis is original in three main respects. First of all, despite the fact that renewal data have been exploited for about two decades to obtain estimates of patent value (Pakes and Schankerman, 1984), this chapter provides – to the best of our knowledge – the first comprehensive analysis of the determinants of patent length. Second, whereas most of the empirical literature in the field focuses on granted patents and investigates their maintenance, the analysis reported here includes all patent applications. This comprehensive approach is dictated by the provisional rights provided by pending applications to their holders and by the legal uncertainty these represent for competitors. And third, the model integrates a wide set of explanatory variables, starting with the filing strategy variables proposed in chapter 5. The main results are threefold: first, they clearly show that patent rights have significantly increased in length over the past decades despite a small apparent decline in the average grant rate, but largely due to the expansion of the examination process. Second, they indicate that most filing strategies induce considerable delays in the examination process, possibly to the benefit of the patentee, but most certainly to the expense of legal uncertainty on the markets. And third, they confirm that more valuable patents (more cited or covering a larger geographical scope) take more time to process, and live longer, whereas more complex applications are associated with longer decision lags, but also with lower grant and renewal rates.<p><p>7. Conclusions: The potential economic consequences and some policy implications of the findings from the dissertation are discussed in chapter 7. The evolution of patenting practices analysed in these works has some direct consequences for the stakeholders of the patent system. For the EPO, they generate a considerable increase in workload, resulting in growing backlogs and processing lags. For innovative firms, this phenomenon translates into an undesired increase in legal uncertainty, for it complicates the assessment of the limits to each party’s rights and hence of the freedom to operate on a market, which is precisely what the so-called ‘patent trolls’ and ‘submariners’ may be looking for. Although empirical evidence is lacking, some fear that this may result in underinvestment in research, development or commercialization activities (e.g. Hall and Harhoff, 2004). In addition, legal uncertainty is synonymous with an increased risk of litigation, which may hamper the development of SMEs and reduce the level of entrepreneurship. Finally, for society, we are left with a contrasted picture, which is hard to interpret. The European patent system wishes to maintain high quality standards to reduce business uncertainty around granted patents, but it is overloaded with the volume of applications filed, resulting in growing backglogs which translate into legal uncertainty surrounding pending applications. The filing strategies that contribute to this situation might reflect a legitimate need for more time and flexibility in filing more valuable patents, but they could also easily turn into real abuses of the system, allowing some patentees to obtain and artificially maintain provisional rights conferred by pending applications on inventions that might not meet the patentability requirements. Distinguishing between these two cases goes beyond the scope of the present dissertation, but should they be found abusive, they should be fought for they consume resources and generate uncertainty. And if legitimate, then they should be understood and the system adapted accordingly (e.g. by adjusting fees to discourage some strategies, raising the inventive step, fine-tuning the statutory term in certain technologies, providing more legal tools for patent examiners to reject unpatentable applications, etc.) so as to better serve the need of inventors for legal protection in a more efficient way, and to adapt the patent system to the challenges it is or will be facing. / Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Jusqu'à l'arrêt CCH Canadienne Ltée c Barreau du Haut-Canada, rendu par la Cour suprême en 2004, la doctrine canadienne opposait deux exceptions générales au droit d’auteur : l'utilisation équitable (fair dealing), existant surtout dans les pays du Commonwealth (dont le Canada), et l’usage loyal (fair use), exception présente aux États-Unis. Alors que le premier modèle serait restrictif et conservateur, le second se voudrait plus libéral et soucieux des droits des utilisateurs. Il va sans dire que certains auteurs contestaient le statu quo juridique et souhaitaient plutôt l'adoption d'une approche libérale, voire étatsunienne, en matière d'utilisation équitable au Canada. Or, depuis l'arrêt CCH et la pentalogie du droit d’auteur de 2012, un important changement conceptuel de cette dichotomie s’est opéré. Certains auteurs décrivent une réduction significative des différences entre les deux approches, rendant les distinctions futiles. Ainsi, nous sommes amenés à nous poser la question suivante : suite à la jurisprudence canadienne contemporaine, existe-t-il toujours une différence significative entre l'utilisation équitable et l’usage loyal ? Ce mémoire se veut une analyse de l’état du droit en 2019 afin de répondre à cette question. Au terme de son raisonnement, l’auteur arrive à la conclusion que même si les deux régimes se ressemblent plus que jamais, les différences entre ceux-ci sont suffisamment importantes pour ne pas les assimiler à une unique approche avec des variations mineures. / Until the Supreme Court of Canada decision CCH Canadian Ltd v Law Society of Upper Canada in 2004, the legal literature in Canada acknowledged two competing general exceptions to copyright: fair dealing, which exists especially in Commonwealth countries (including Canada), and fair use, an exception in the United States. While the former was seen as restrictive and conservative, the second was viewed as intending to be liberal and more concerned with user rights. Needless to say, some writers contested the legal status quo and wanted a liberal, even American, approach to fair dealing in Canada. However, since the CCH decision and the copyright pentalogy of 2012, there has been a significant conceptual shift with regard to this dichotomy. Some authors describe a significant reduction in the differences between the two approaches, making the distinctions of little consequence. As such, we are led to ask the following question: given the contemporary Canadian jurisprudence, is there still a significant difference between fair dealing and fair use? This dissertation is an analysis of the state of the law in 2019 for the purpose of answering this question. At the end of his examination of the issue, the author comes to the conclusion that even if the two regimes are more similar than ever, the differences between them are sufficiently important to not assimilate them into a single approach with minor variations.

Les négociations internationales concernant la protection des indications géographiques connaissent, depuis près de deux décennies, un blocage au sein de l’Organisation Mondiale du Commerce opposant des pays défenseurs des indications géographiques, à des pays plus sceptiques. Résultant d’un compromis entre l’approche des pays de l’Union Européenne et celle des Etats-Unis, les standards minimum de protection des indications géographiques de l’ADPIC ont mis en lumière la diversité des approches juridiques en la matière et fait émerger un débat quasi-passionnel sur les moyens appropriés que l’Etat doit mettre en œuvre pour protéger les noms géographiques. L’histoire renseigne sur le fait que le plaidoyer pour ou le réquisitoire contre l’un ou l’autre camp ont toujours tourné autour des philosophies de la protection des indications géographiques : d’une part, les pays défenseurs des indications géographiques prônent à travers leur mise en œuvre, la protection d’industries plus vulnérables à la concurrence ; d’autre part, les pays sceptiques privilégient le plus possible, la liberté du commerce et de l’industrie et par ricochet, la libre exploitation des signes. Pour ces derniers, seule la reconnaissance par le consommateur d’une association qualité-origine du produit justifie une réservation du nom. Le régime multilatéral des IG issu de l’Accord sur les aspects de la propriété intellectuelle qui touchent au commerce résulte donc d’un compromis entre ces deux philosophies de la protection. D’aucuns ont souligné le caractère insatisfaisant d’un tel compromis qui ne rend pas nécessairement compte de la nature réelle de ces signes géographiques. Ce travail tente de le transcender. Il est fondé sur le pari que, dans une perspective juridique, tout n’a peut-être pas été essayé. Dans un effort pour trouver un dénominateur commun et pour proposer une solution à l’impasse actuelle, cette recherche repose sur le rapprochement du régime de protection des indications géographiques, au régime de protection des droits de l’Homme. Non pas dans une perspective moralisatrice mais bien dans un effort pour déduire des solutions concrètes quant à la portée de la protection internationale des IG et du rôle des Etats dans la mise en œuvre de ces outils de propriété intellectuelle. L’article 15.1 c) du Pacte sur les droits économiques, sociaux et culturels prévoit : « Chacun a droit à la protection de ses intérêts moraux et matériels découlant de toute production scientifique, littéraire ou artistique dont il est l’auteur ». L’activation de cet article pourrait permettre de voir en les détenteurs d’IG non pas seulement les sujets bénéficiaires de la protection mais les sujets destinataires de politiques publiques. Il y aurait un donc un « droit de » bénéficier d’une certaine protection des IG et un « droit à » certaines prestations publiques. Au-delà de ce cadre en apparence rigide, le recours au droit international des droits de l’Homme rend la recherche d’un équilibre entre les droits de détenteurs IG et les droits du public plus intégratrice d’enjeux multiples et indispensable à la légitimité du régime multilatéral de protection des IG. / Since two decades, the international protection of geographical indications is characterized by a “blockage” in the negotiations at the World Trade Organization opposing the countries favorable to the protection of geographical indications to countries more skeptical in this regard. Deriving from a compromise between the European conception of the protection of GIs and the American one, the minimum standards of TRIPS have revealed the different legal options in this field and have resulted in a passionate debate over the appropriate role of the State. History shows that the advocacy for, or indictment against one or the other way of protecting GIs focuses essentially on the philosophy of protection in one or the other territories. As a reminder, the European Union “culture” is to protect industries far too exposed to competition while the American “culture” is to preserve economic freedom of operators and to grant monopoly on a geographical name only where such name has been tested on the market and is recognized by the “public” as having a geographical anchorage. Equally compelling, neither of these philosophies has allowed reaching the most acceptable balance for GI regime. This work seeks to transcend them. It bets that everything has not been tried yet, at least from a legal perspective. In order to find a common solution and a way forward to multilateral protection of geographical indications, the paper relies on the culture of “human rights”, not really with a view to “moralize” the field of study but more to deduct practical answers deriving from the international human rights law. As a matter of fact, article 15.1 c) of the Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights provides that “The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone […] to benefit from the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author”. The activation of this article could allow approaching geographical indications operators, not only as beneficiaries of certain rights but also as beneficiaries of public policies. By virtue of article 15.1 c), there shall be a right to benefit from the GI protection (“right-liberty”) but also, a right to claim certain public policies (“right-debt”) in this regard. Beyond this seemingly strict framework for GIs, the reference to international human rights law proves to beneficial to the necessary balance between the rights of GI operators and the rights of the public. Incidentally, this balance is inclusive of multiple issues which is essential to the legitimacy of the multilateral regime of protection of GIs.

"Thèse présentée à la Faculté des études supérieures de l'Université de Montréal en vue de l'obtention du grade de Docteur en Droit (L.L.D.) et à l'Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3" / La propriété des créances est une notion controversée dans les systèmes juridiques romanogermaniques. Pourtant, le mouvement vers la dématérialisation des richesses conduit à envisager l'alliance de la propriété et de la créance, déjà reconnue par le biais du langage. Tant l'histoire que l'économie semblent converger vers la reconnaissance de la nature de bien des créances. Admettre cette nature ne suffit plus: encore faut-il en tirer la conséquence qui s'impose en termes d'objet de la propriété. C'est ce que semble avoir fait le récent Code civil du Québec. Tout autant que la propriété matérielle, la propriété des créances a prétention à la technicité. Longtemps cachée sous le manteau de la titularité, la propriété des créances n'a pas une nature distincte de celle de la propriété des corps. Simplement, de même que le régime juridique de la propriété s'adapte aux biens meubles ou immeubles qui en sont l'objet, le régime de la propriété des créances épouse la particularité de l'objet immatériel que sont les biens-créances. / The question as to whether ownership can bear on claims is a controversial one in Romano Germanic legal systems. Yet the on-going trend towards the dematerialisation of wealth invites legal experts to ally ownership and claims much in the same way in which, in ordinary parlance, people are said to own personal rights. Both history and economics would seem to point to a common recognition of the property nature of claims. Yet acknowledging the possibility that ownership bear on claims is no longer enough. The consequences of viewing the object of ownership as extending beyond material things must be recognized more generally. This is what the recent Civil Code of Québec appears to have done. Just as the material conception of ownership rests upon a technical infrastructure of the law of property, so too does the extension of ownership to claims require the elaboration of a technical regime. Traditionally obscured by a theory of titularity of rights, ownership as a means for explaining title to claims has the same juridical nature as ownership of things. Simply stated, ownership adapts to the object to which it attaches. Just as ownership can accommodate both movable and immovable property, so too can it be adapted to accommodate the peculiarities of claims as the object upon which it bears.