Book VII: Trademarks and other distinctive signs

The application for registration of a mark shall be filed at the headquarters of the National Institute of Industrial Property or shall be sent there by post or by any means of teletransmission under the conditions defined by decision of its Director General. The filing date shall be the date of receipt of the application at the registered office of the Institute. The Director General of the National Institute of…

The filing may be made personally by the applicant or by a representative whose domicile, registered office or place of business is in a Member State of the European Union or in a State party to the Agreement on the European Economic Area. Subject to the exceptions provided for in articles L. 422-4 and L. 422-5, the agent appointed for the filing of a trade mark application and any subsequent…

The application shall comprise: 1° The application for registration of the trade mark drawn up in accordance with the conditions laid down by the decision referred to in Article R. 712-26 and specifying in particular: a) The identification of the applicant; b) The representation of the trade mark drawn up in accordance with the provisions of Article R. 711-1; c) A list of the goods or services to which it…

Goods and services shall be designated with sufficient clarity and precision to enable any person to determine, on that basis alone, the scope of protection. Goods and services shall be classified in accordance with the system established by the Nice Agreement Concerning the International Classification of Goods and Services for the Purposes of the Registration of Marks of 15 June 1957. The use of general terms, including the general indications…

The claiming, on the occasion of a filing made in France, of a right of priority attached to a previous foreign filing entails the obligation to send to the Institut national de la propriété industrielle, within three months of the filing in France, an official copy of the previous filing and, where applicable, proof of the right to claim priority. If this obligation is not complied with, the priority shall…

On receipt of the filing, the following shall be mentioned on the application for registration: the date, place and serial number of filing or the national number provided for in Article R. 712-6. A receipt of filing shall be issued to the applicant.

As soon as it is received at the National Institute of Industrial Property, the filing gives rise to the allocation of a national number. Where it has not been possible to mention it on the filing receipt, this number shall be notified to the applicant. Any subsequent correspondence or filing of documents which does not refer to the national number of the application for registration, which does not bear the…

Any filing that does not include the information provided for in Article R. 712-3 (1° a, b and c) and which is not accompanied by proof of payment of the filing fee. However, this inadmissibility can only be invoked by the Institut national de la propriété industrielle after the applicant has been invited to complete the missing information. The request for regularisation shall state that if no regularisation is made…

Any filing recognised as admissible shall be published in the Official Bulletin of Industrial Property, unless it appears either that its presentation does not meet the technical requirements necessary to allow its reproduction, or that its publication would be of such a nature as to infringe public policy or morality. Publication in the Official Bulletin takes place within six weeks of receipt of the filing at the National Institute of…