Marseille Court Ruling (2025): Blockchain Recognized as Evidence

The ruling: key facts

On 20 March 2025, the Tribunal judiciaire de Marseille (1st Civil Chamber) handed down a landmark decision in the field of intellectual property and digital evidence. In case No. RG 23/00046, the court ruled that blockchain timestamping constitutes a legitimate and admissible form of evidence for establishing copyright ownership and the date of creation of original works. This is the first time a French court, and, to current knowledge, any European court, has explicitly recognized blockchain-based timestamping in a copyright infringement dispute.

Parties and context

The claimant was AZ Factory, the fashion house founded by the late Alber Elbaz, one of the most celebrated fashion designers of his generation. AZ Factory brought the case against a Chinese company that had been producing and selling counterfeit goods reproducing several of AZ Factory's original designs.

To protect its intellectual property, AZ Factory had taken a proactive step: before any infringement was discovered, the company had timestamped its original creations on the blockchain. Specifically, the designs were anchored on 5 May 2021 and 15 September 2021, using the platform BlockchainyourIP, a service dedicated to intellectual property registration through blockchain technology. This meant that at the time the infringement was later identified and legal proceedings were initiated, AZ Factory already had a verifiable, tamper-proof record establishing when its designs had been created.

The blockchain evidence

The evidence presented to the court comprised two distinct but complementary elements. The first was the blockchain timestamping reports generated by BlockchainyourIP, which documented the cryptographic hashing and anchoring of AZ Factory's designs on the blockchain. These reports established that a specific digital fingerprint of each creation had been immutably recorded at a precise point in time.

The second element was a bailiff's report (procès-verbal de constat) dated 19 October 2022, prepared by a commissioned judicial officer (commissaire de justice). The bailiff verified and attested to the contents of the blockchain records, creating an official legal document that corroborated the digital evidence. This combination of technological proof and traditional legal certification proved decisive in the court's assessment.

The court explicitly acknowledged these "blockchain timestamping reports" as part of the body of evidence. Importantly, the court did not treat the blockchain records as absolute proof, French law distinguishes between preuve parfaite (perfect proof, such as an authentic deed) and preuve imparfaite (imperfect proof, subject to the judge's free assessment). The blockchain evidence was accepted as imperfect proof: a legitimate, credible, and admissible element of evidence that the judge could freely evaluate alongside other elements in the case file.

The court's decision

Based on the combined evidence, the blockchain timestamping reports corroborated by the bailiff's report, alongside other supporting materials, the Tribunal judiciaire de Marseille ruled in favor of AZ Factory. The court awarded a total of 11,900 EUR in damages: 1,900 EUR for material damages (préjudice matériel) and 10,000 EUR for moral damages (préjudice moral). Additionally, the court ordered the prohibition of further infringement and the destruction of all counterfeit goods in the defendant's possession.

Why this ruling matters

First judicial recognition in Europe

The Marseille decision is significant because it represents the first explicit judicial recognition of blockchain timestamping as evidence in a French (and European) intellectual property case. While legal scholars and practitioners had long theorized that blockchain records should be admissible under the French Civil Code's principle of free proof (liberté de la preuve) for copyright matters, no court had formally ruled on the question until this case.

French copyright law does not require formal registration, rights arise automatically upon creation of an original work. However, proving the date of creation and the identity of the creator is often the central challenge in infringement disputes. Traditional methods include registered mail to oneself (lettre recommandée), Soleau envelopes deposited with the INPI, or notarial deposits. The Marseille ruling now adds blockchain timestamping to this arsenal, validating it as a modern, technology-driven alternative.

Setting a precedent

Although first-instance decisions in France do not create binding precedent in the common-law sense, they carry significant persuasive authority, particularly when they address a novel legal question for the first time. The Marseille ruling establishes a clear judicial signal that blockchain-based evidence is taken seriously by French courts.

This precedent extends beyond BlockchainyourIP specifically. The court's reasoning was based on the general properties of blockchain technology, immutability, timestamping, and cryptographic integrity, rather than on any features unique to a particular platform. This means the decision is relevant to all blockchain-based timestamping services, including Anchorify. Any platform that anchors a cryptographic hash on a public blockchain and provides verifiable proof of that anchoring can now point to this ruling as judicial validation of the underlying approach.

The decision also sends a message to businesses and creators: proactively timestamping your creations and sensitive data on the blockchain is not merely a technological curiosity, it is a legally meaningful step that can strengthen your position in court.

The role of the bailiff

A distinctive feature of the Marseille case is the role played by the bailiff (commissaire de justice, formerly huissier de justice). In French law, a bailiff is a public officer with the authority to make official findings of fact. A procès-verbal de constat (bailiff's report) is a document in which the bailiff records what they have personally observed, and it carries strong evidentiary weight before French courts.

In this case, the bailiff did not create the blockchain evidence, AZ Factory had already timestamped its creations through BlockchainyourIP. Instead, the bailiff's role was to verify and attest to the contents and integrity of the blockchain records at a later date. Specifically, the bailiff confirmed that the blockchain anchoring had taken place, that the records were consistent with the claimed timestamps, and that the digital fingerprints matched the original designs.

This creates a powerful complementary relationship between two forms of evidence. The blockchain provides the immutable technological record, a cryptographic hash anchored at a specific point in time, verifiable by anyone. The bailiff's report adds an independent legal attestation by a trusted public officer, translating the technical evidence into a format that is immediately intelligible and credible to the court. Together, they form a chain of evidence that is both technologically robust and legally authoritative.

For organizations planning to rely on blockchain evidence in potential future disputes, this approach offers a practical blueprint: timestamp your data on the blockchain first, then have a bailiff certify the blockchain records before litigation arises. This combination significantly strengthens the evidentiary value of the blockchain proof.

What this means for businesses and creators

The Marseille ruling has several concrete implications for businesses, creators, and organizations that produce original works or handle sensitive information.

Blockchain timestamping is now judicially validated in France. This is no longer a theoretical argument or a legal scholar's opinion, a French court has ruled on it. Businesses that use blockchain-based notarization services can now cite a specific judicial decision when questioned about the legal value of their proofs. This is a significant shift in the credibility and confidence associated with blockchain evidence.

Proactive timestamping is a strategic advantage. AZ Factory won its case in part because it had timestamped its designs before the infringement occurred. This is a critical lesson: blockchain notarization is most valuable when it is done preemptively, creating a verifiable record before any dispute arises. Waiting until a conflict has already started to gather evidence is inherently weaker than having an immutable, pre-existing proof.

The practical applications extend well beyond fashion design and copyright:

• Intellectual property, Timestamp designs, source code, inventions, and creative works to establish priority dates.
• Trade secrets, Record the existence and content of confidential business information at a specific date, without revealing the information itself (only the hash is anchored).
• Contractual evidence, Anchor the hash of contracts, terms of service, or agreements to prove their content at the time of signing.
• Regulatory compliance, Create immutable audit trails for regulated industries where proving the existence of records at specific dates is required.
• Research and development, Establish priority for scientific discoveries or technical innovations by timestamping research notebooks and data sets.

In each of these scenarios, the key value of blockchain notarization, as confirmed by the Marseille court, is its ability to provide an independent, tamper-proof record of existence at a specific point in time.

Going further with Anchorify

The Marseille ruling validates the fundamental principle behind Anchorify's technology: a cryptographic hash anchored on a public blockchain constitutes admissible evidence. Anchorify operates on exactly this principle, you generate a hash of your data locally, submit it through our API, and we anchor it on the blockchain with a verifiable proof.

However, Anchorify goes significantly further than the evidence that was used in the Marseille case, in several important ways:

• Multi-blockchain anchoring, While the Marseille case involved anchoring on a single blockchain, Anchorify's Pro and Enterprise plans anchor on multiple public blockchains simultaneously. This provides redundancy, resilience, and technology neutrality. If one blockchain becomes less accessible or less trusted over time, your proof remains verifiable on others.
• eIDAS-qualified timestamps, Anchorify's Enterprise plan adds eIDAS-qualified timestamps issued by accredited Trust Service Providers. Under EU Regulation 910/2014, qualified timestamps enjoy a legal presumption of accuracy regarding the date and integrity of the data. This is a higher level of legal certainty than blockchain evidence alone, combining both creates the strongest possible proof.
• Signed proof documents, Anchorify generates complete proof bundles containing the original hash, the Merkle proof path, blockchain transaction references, and optionally the eIDAS-qualified timestamp. These self-contained documents can be independently verified by anyone, at any time, without relying on Anchorify's continued existence.
• Support for multiple hash algorithms, Anchorify supports SHA-256, SHA-384, and SHA-512, providing flexibility to match your security requirements and organizational standards.

The Marseille decision confirms that blockchain evidence, even using a single chain and without eIDAS-qualified timestamps, is admissible and persuasive before a French court. With Anchorify's multi-blockchain anchoring and optional eIDAS-qualified timestamps, the evidentiary strength is substantially reinforced. Organizations that adopt this approach are building the most robust digital evidence infrastructure available today, validated not just by cryptographic theory but now also by judicial practice.