French patent attorney (conseil en propriété industrielle)

The industrial property counsel, often designated by the French acronym CPI, is a regulated professional. The counsel assists companies and inventors in obtaining, managing and defending their industrial property titles. Articles L. 422-1 et seq. of the French Intellectual Property Code frame the profession. They can be consulted on Légifrance. The industrial property counsel moreover appears on a list kept by the INPI and obeys its own professional rules.

The missions of the industrial property counsel

First, the CPI drafts and files patent, trade mark and design applications, in France, before the European Patent Office and the EUIPO, or through the international route. Second, the CPI handles examination, opposition and renewal procedures and monitors competing titles. Third, the CPI advises on the building and valorisation of the portfolio, and carries out freedom to operate studies and prior art searches. Many CPIs have a scientific or technical background, which makes them particularly qualified to draft the claims of a patent.

Industrial property counsel and attorney

The two professions are distinct and complementary. The CPI cannot plead before the judicial courts. The CPI does, however, represent clients before the INPI and, as a professional representative, before the European Patent Office and, under conditions, before the Unified Patent Court. The attorney specialised in intellectual property, for its part, conducts infringement and nullity actions, as well as saisies-contrefaçon and applications for provisional measures.

Key points

In practice, the success of patent litigation rests on the collaboration between the attorney and the CPI who drafted or prosecuted the title. That is why the firm works in tandem with its clients’ CPIs. The collaboration covers the whole procedure, from the preparation of the saisie-contrefaçon to the hearing, as described on the page patent litigation.