Patent application

A patent application is the act by which a person applies for the grant of a patent for an invention. In France, it is filed with the INPI, the French patent office. It may also be filed with the European Patent Office or through the international PCT route. The patent application fixes the date at which the novelty and inventive step of the invention will be assessed. That date is therefore decisive.

The content of the patent application

Under Articles L. 612-1 et seq. of the French Intellectual Property Code, the application comprises a request for grant, a description of the invention, one or more claims, the drawings referred to in the description or the claims, and an abstract. The description must disclose the invention in a manner sufficiently clear and complete for a person skilled in the art to carry it out. The claims define the subject matter for which protection is sought. The filing date is the date on which the minimum documents are submitted, subject to later regularisation. The provisions are available on Légifrance.

How the procedure unfolds

First, the INPI checks the formal regularity of the application and the absence of any threat to national defence. Next, it draws up a preliminary search report listing the relevant prior art. The applicant may respond to it and amend its claims. The patent application is published eighteen months after the filing date or the priority date. Finally, the INPI grants the patent or refuses the application. Since the PACTE Act, refusal may be based on lack of inventive step.

Strategic choices

The first filing opens a twelve-month priority period within which protection can be extended abroad while keeping the initial date. That period allows the commercial value of the invention to be assessed before incurring the costs of a European or international procedure. The application may be converted into a utility certificate. Any disclosure of the invention before filing destroys novelty, which requires confidentiality during the preparation phase. In practice, the drafting of a patent application is entrusted to a patent attorney (conseil en propriété industrielle), and the firm advises on the legal questions of ownership, confidentiality and strategy, as presented on the page patent litigation attorney.

Key takeaways

The application fixes the date at which novelty and inventive step will be assessed, and its content definitively confines what can later be claimed: nothing can be added afterwards without incurring invalidity for added matter. Hence the practical rule: file only once the invention is sufficiently described, and disclose only after filing.