Franklin assisted the Editions La Martinière group in negotiating and closing a deal with Google that was made public on 25 August.

This agreement defines the contractual terms for the scanning of books no longer available for sale but still protected by copyright. Under the terms of the deal, Google and La Martinière will agree on a catalog of the unavailable books published by La Martinière that are to be scanned by Google, a better visibility for such scanned books and a commercial collaboration that enables La Martinière to sell its books on the Google Ebooks platform though a revenue sharing scheme.

This deal marks a new era in the relationship between Google and La Martinière and puts an end to the legal proceedings commenced by the latter over five years ago.

Yann Colin, Bradley Joslove and Alexandre Marque, partners at Franklin, successfully assisted La Martinière group throughout these proceedings since 2006; Yann Colin in litigation matters, Bradley Joslove with respect to Internet and IP law and Alexandre Marque in negotiating the deal.

In particular, they obtained a widely publicized decision rendered in favor of La Martinière group by the First-Level Court in Paris on December 18, 2009. “This has been an exciting case”, Yann Colin said, “in that it raised new and particularly complex legal issues for which we were able to provide innovative solutions such as this deal, which we are very happy about. Google and La Martinière are now engaged in constructive cooperation, which will no doubt influence the general framework of relationships between French publishers and the online world.”