French Intellectual Property Code

The patent application shall be made in the form and under the conditions laid down in this Chapter and specified by regulation.

The filing date of the patent application shall be the date on which the applicant has produced documents containing: a) An indication that a patent is applied for; b) Information enabling the applicant to be identified or communicated with; c) A description, even if it does not comply with the other requirements of this Title, or a reference to an application filed previously under the conditions laid down by regulation.

Where two patent applications are filed successively by the same inventor or his successor in title within a period of not more than twelve months, the applicant may request that the second application benefit from the filing date of the first for the elements common to both applications. The request shall not be admissible where the benefit of the right of priority attached to a previous foreign filing has already…

The patent application may relate to only one invention or to a plurality of inventions linked together in such a way that they form a single general inventive concept. Any application which does not comply with the provisions of the preceding paragraph must be divided within the prescribed period; divisional applications shall benefit from the filing date and, where applicable, the priority date of the initial application.

The invention must be set out in the patent application in a sufficiently clear and complete manner to enable a person skilled in the art to carry it out. Where an invention involving biological material to which the public does not have access cannot be described in such a way as to enable a person skilled in the art to carry out that invention, its description shall not be deemed…

The claims define the subject matter of the protection applied for. They must be clear and concise and based on the description.

1. An applicant for a patent who wishes to avail himself of the priority of an earlier filing shall be required to file a declaration of priority and to prove the existence of the earlier application under the conditions and within the time limits laid down by regulation. 2. Multiple priorities may be claimed for a patent application, even if they originate in different States. Where appropriate, multiple priorities may…