Jean-Francois Merdrignac
Intellectual Property and Sports Counsel, Paris
"I advise and assist international clients in highly strategic national and pan-European patent, trademark and design litigations, and provide responsive, technically sound and commercially focused advice on all intellectual property aspects of M&A transactions and complex restructuring."
Overview
Professional experience
Education and qualifications
Published works
Overview
Jean-François advises international clients on their intellectual property rights enforcement strategies and is notably used to manage cross-border patent and trademark litigations. He has a particular expertise in the pharmaceutical field and has a significant experience and knowledge of the electronic sector.
Jean-François also assists clients with negotiating and drafting contracts related to intellectual property rights. He notably advises banks, private equity funds and companies in all intellectual property issues raised by M&A transactions and complex restructuring operations.
Prior to joining Linklaters in Paris, Jean-François worked within a European intellectual property boutique in Paris. He also completed internships in French and European law firms, and in a major company in the cosmetic industry.
Jean-François also co-leads the Sport Sector of the firm in Paris.
Work highlights
- Assisting a US pharmaceutical innovator in a patent litigation action (including preliminary injunction action) against generic companies about to launch their generic products on the French market.
- Assisting a pharmaceutical company specialising in the development of therapies for HIV infection in a multi-jurisdictional patent infringement action initiated against another innovator in relation to the marketing of an anti-HIV drug.
- Assisting a US pharmaceutical company (defendant) against a generic company in a revocation action about a patent covering a nanoparticle composition of an anti-emetic drug.
- Assisting a leading luxury group against a former employee claiming for patent ownership and additional remuneration in relation to inventions performed in the course of her employment agreement.
- Advising a mechanical and engineering group in the course of a bidding process for purchasing the defence activity of a major automotive group.
- Advising a public investment fund with respect to a transitional trademark license agreement to be entered into by a major hotel company and the subsidiary handling the assigned business
Professional experience
Education and qualifications
Published works
- Chapter “France” of the book “Patent Litigation Law Review”, co-authored with Pauline Debré (2017 to 2021)
- “Copyright liability for online content-sharing platforms: Where are we now?”, Managing IP, to be published, August 2021, co-authored with Lisa Bauer, Katherine Berry and Tom de Coster
- “Balancing public health safeguards and the promotion of alcohol in sports: a message in a bottle?”, SportingLinks, 3 March 2021.
- “Copyright infringement: is the YouTube case a new pirate tale?”, Bloomberg Law, 19 August 2020, co-authored with Lisa Bauer, Tom De Coster and Natalie Ellerby. Available here.
- “From Milan to Miami: an Inter-national trademark battle”, The Licensing Journal, June/July 2020, vol. 40, n°6.
- “End of the line, nobody gets off! The French administrative Supreme Court suspends the relegation of Amiens and Toulouse to Ligue 2”, SportingLinks, 11 June 2020, co-authored with Nathanaël Caillard.
- “Football club ownership rules: the view across Europe”, SportingLinks, 4 June 2020, co-authored with Matthew Taylor and Leonard Pellet.
- Participation to the report of the French group of the AIPPI 2020 | Copyright question: “Protection of data”
- “Claiming for patent ownership: the harder they fall…”, Propriété Industrielle, November 2019, co-authored with Pauline Debré
- Participation to the report of the French group of AIPPI 2019 | Transversal question: “Damages for acts other than sale”
- “Applying statutes of limitations to patent revocations in France”, EPLAW Patent Blog, 9 November 2017, co-authored with Pauline Debré. Available here.