French Intellectual Property Code

Amendments to the patent application must not extend its subject matter beyond the content of the application as filed.

The patent application may be withdrawn at any time, by a written declaration, until the fee for granting and printing the patent specification has been paid. This declaration may relate to only one application. It shall be made by the applicant or by an agent, who, unless he is an industrial property attorney or a lawyer, must attach to the declaration a special power of withdrawal. If the patent application…

At the expiry of the eighteen-month period provided for in Article L. 612-21, or at any time before the expiry of that period at the written request of the applicant, a notice shall be published in the Bulletin officiel de la propriété industrielle that the patent application has been made public. From the day of the publication provided for in the preceding paragraph, any person may inspect the documents in…

Where the patent application has been filed in the form of a provisional application, the written request referred to in the first paragraph of Article R. 612-39 must be accompanied, on pain of inadmissibility, by the request for compliance or the request for conversion into a utility certificate application, mentioned in the first paragraph of Article R. 612-3-2.

The duration of the technical preparations provided for in Article R. 612-39 is set by decision of the Director General of the Institut national de la propriété industrielle. This decision is published in the Bulletin officiel de la propriété industrielle.

Excluded from communication to the public are: – draft decisions and opinions, as well as documents not communicated to the applicant used in the preparation of these decisions and opinions; – documents relating to the designation of the inventor if he has waived designation as such under the conditions provided for in Article R. 611-16; – documents containing personal data or relating to business secrecy; – any other document excluded…

Where the invention concerns a micro-organism, any person may, either from the date of publication provided for in Article R. 612-39, or before that date if it has been notified of a copy of the patent application, request access to the culture filed in accordance with Articles R. 612-14 and R. 612-15. The request is made in writing to the National Institute of Industrial Property. It shall include, in particular,…

For the application of Article R. 612-42 (1° and 2°), a derived crop is any crop that still has the characteristics of the registered crop that are essential for implementing the invention. The undertakings provided for in Article R. 612-42 (1° and 2°) do not prevent the deposit of a derived culture for the purposes of patent proceedings. The applicant for the patent may indicate by a written declaration made…

Subject to any impediments resulting from the application of the provisions of articles R. 612-27 and R. 612-28, the applicant may at any time obtain, at his own expense, an official copy of the documents of his patent application.