INPI

The INPI, the French National Institute of Industrial Property, is the French public body responsible for receiving, examining and granting industrial property titles: patents, utility certificates, supplementary protection certificates, trade marks and designs. Placed under the supervision of the ministry in charge of industry, the INPI keeps the national registers which make acts relating to those titles enforceable against third parties. Its official website is inpi.fr.

The missions of the INPI

First, the examination and grant of titles. For patents, the INPI draws up a search report and, since the PACTE Act, may refuse an application for lack of inventive step. For trade marks, it examines the absolute grounds for refusal and handles oppositions filed by holders of earlier rights. Second, the keeping of the National Patent Register, the National Trade Mark Register and the National Design Register, where assignments, licences and pledges are recorded. Third, the dissemination of information: public databases, the Official Bulletin of Industrial Property, statistics and awareness initiatives.

Contentious proceedings before the INPI

Since the PACTE Act, the INPI hears proceedings that previously belonged to the courts. The opposition procedure allows a third party to seek the revocation or limitation of a French patent within nine months of its grant. Invalidity actions and trade mark revocation actions based on absolute grounds or on certain earlier rights are brought as main claims before the INPI, the courts remaining competent where the claim is connected with an infringement action. Decisions of the Director General of the INPI may be appealed before the Paris Court of Appeal. The provisions can be consulted on Légifrance.

Key points

In practice, the INPI is the counterpart of any company protecting an invention, a trade mark or a creation in France. Entries in the register condition the enforceability of contracts and the admissibility of certain actions. The firm appears before the INPI in opposition and invalidity proceedings and before the Paris Court of Appeal on appeal, alongside its activity before the Paris Judicial Court and the UPC, as presented on the page patent litigation attorney.