Industrial Property Law

By virtue of Article L. 611-1 of the Intellectual Property Code, any invention may be the subject of an industrial property title issued by the director of the INPI, which confers on its proprietor or his successors in title an exclusive right of exploitation. Inventions can be protected by a patent, a utility certificate or a supplementary protection certificate (Art. L. 611-2 IP Code). The “certificate of addition” (certificat d'addition), which was a document ancillary to the main patent granted to an invention connected to the patent by at least one claim, was abolished by the Law of 26 November 1990  and has thus progressively disappeared.

French patent law was regulated over a long period by a law dating from 5 July 1844, which was replaced on 2 January 1968, amended and completed by three successive laws dated 13 July 1978, 27 June 1984 and 26 November 1990, the provisions of which were codified in Book VI of the Intellectual Property Code by the Law of 1 July 1992 . This Code was then extended to include provisions relating to the fight against intellectual property infringement, respect for the human body, the protection of biotechnological inventions and the status of industrial property attorneys, in application of international agreements . The LME Law of 4 August 2008, which, inter alia, amended Articles L. 613- 24, L. 613-25 and L. 614-12 of the Intellectual Property Code, introduced a procedure for the voluntary limitation of patent claims and introduced a regulatory part into the code. Law No 2014- 315 of 11 March 2014 completes the legal framework for the fight against infringement . The Macron Law of 6 August 2015 made some changes to the regime of employee inventions. The Ordinance of 9 May 2018 brought French law into line with European legislation on unitary patents. Finally, the Pacte Law reformed the system for obtaining rights in an attempt to revive inventive endeavors in France. It also provides for a right of opposition to patents in order to allow third parties to apply by means of administrative proceedings for the amendment or revocation of the patent.

The protection granted by the patent, which is the result of a concession by the public authorities, is generally territorial in nature. But the economic development of industry very early on underlined the inadequacy of this limited framework, and made the need for international protection appear. Thus, the Paris Convention of 20 March 1883 laid the foundations of a universal law complementing the national laws. This important document was perfected by a Patent Law Treaty (PLT)  and a Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) . In parallel, the Council of Europe has attempted to standardize national laws by concluding three conventions: that of 11 December 1953 on the formalities prescribed for patent applications, that of 19 December 1954 on the international classification of patents for invention, and that of 27 November 1963 on the unification of certain aspects of patent law. This work led to the adoption of the Munich Convention of 5 October 1973 on the grant of European patents, which became the “EPC 2000” since the Act revising the Convention of the Grant of European Patents of 29 November 2000, which entered into force on 13 December 2007 . In the absence of a uniform patent right, it confers a bundle of national patents.

The Luxembourg Convention of 15 December 1975 for the creation of a Community patent, which would be a single right valid throughout the territory of the EU, has never entered into force. On the other hand, after thirty years of negotiations, the project for a European unitary patent finally came into being with the adoption of Regulations No 1257/2012 and No 1260/2012 of 17 December 2012. On 19 February 2013, twenty-five Member States signed the International Agreement on a Unified Patent Court  which provides for the establishment of a European patent with unitary effect and a Unified Patent Court (UPC) with exclusive jurisdiction over litigation concerning the invalidation and infringement of European patents and European patents with unitary effect. The Ordinance of 9 May 2018 , which brought the Intellectual Property Code into line with the new rules, was set to enter into force on the date of entry into force of the agreement, originally scheduled for 1 April 2023  and postponed to 1 June 2023 .

Patent filings through national channels have been experiencing a slight decline since 2018 . Patent applications to the European Patent Office from France, on the other hand, are stable, with a significant increase of 3.1% in 2020 .

Law No 90-1052 of 26 November 1990 on industrial property, OJ 276 of 28 November 1990.

Law No 92-597 of 1 July 1992 on the Intellectual Property Code, OJ 153 of 3 July 1992.

See Unified Patent Court notice of 5 December 2022, Adjustment of the timeline - Start of the Sunrise Period on 1 March 2023, Unified Patent Court (unified-patent-court.org). 

See INSEE, Annual Data from 2011 to 2021, on the INSEE website, https://www.insee.fr: 16,155 in 2016, 16,247 in 2017, 16,222 in 2018, 15,812 in 2019, 14,309 in 2020, 14,758 in 2021.

See EPO 2020 Barometer: stability for European patent applications - France, 2nd most innovative country in Europe, on the INPI website, https://www.inpi.fr: 10,484 in 2016, 10,619 in 2017, 10,468 in 2018, 10,233 in 2019 and 10,554 in 2020.

Agreement establishing the World Trade Organization (WTO), London Protocol of 17 October 2000 defining the requirements for the translation of patents, Act revising the Convention on the Grant of European Patents. 

Law No 2014-315 of 11 March 2014 reinforcing the fight against intellectual property infringement, OJ No 60 of 12 March 2014.

Adopted at the WIPO Conference of 11-22 May 2000. See the ratification law and its implementing decree: Law No 2009-892 of 24 January 2009, JO of 25 July 2009 and D. 2010-10 of 6 January 2010, JO of 8 January 2010.

Agreement of 19 February 2013 on a Unified Patent Court (UPCA), OJ EPO 2013, 287.

Ordinance No 2018-341 of 9 May 2018 on the European patent with unitary effect and the unified patent jurisdiction, OJ of 10 May 2018.

See Implementation roadmap - Outlook, on the website of the Unified Patent Court: https://www.unified-patent-court.org.

228. Patents