Product invention

A product invention is an invention that relates to a material object: a device, a machine, a chemical substance, a composition, a material or an organism. It stands in contrast to the process invention, which relates to a way of doing something, and to the application invention, which relates to a new use. The product invention confers the broadest protection, because it covers the product whatever the process by which it was obtained and whatever use is made of it.

The scope of protection of the product invention

Under Article L. 613-3 of the French Intellectual Property Code, the manufacture, offering, placing on the market, use, importation, exportation, transhipment and stocking for those purposes of the product covered by the patent are prohibited without the consent of the holder. This protection is said to be absolute: a third party who manufactures the same product by a different process, or who uses it for a purpose not envisaged by the inventor, commits an infringement. The provision can be consulted on Légifrance.

Drafting product claims

First, the product is defined by its structural features or by its composition. Second, where such a definition is impossible, it may be defined by the process by which it is obtained, in what is called a product-by-process claim. Such a product is patentable only if it is itself new and inventive. Third, in chemistry, a family of compounds may be claimed by a general formula, which raises questions of sufficiency of description and plausibility where the family is very broad.

Key points

In practice, the holder of a product invention must verify that its claims are not limited by unnecessary features, which would offer competitors a way around. Proving infringement of a product is generally simpler than proving infringement of a process, because it rests on the analysis of the competing product obtained through a saisie-contrefaçon or by purchase. The firm acts in these disputes, as presented on the page bringing a patent infringement action.

Product inventions include substances and compositions; a device invention more specifically concerns an apparatus or an arrangement of technical means.