Section 1: Organisation of the National Institute of Industrial Property

The Institut national de la propriété industrielle shall in particular be responsible for:

1° The examination of patent applications, the grant of patents and all documents relating thereto, and the examination of oppositions;

1° bis. The granting, on the advice of the Minister for Defence, of authorisations for the disclosure and free working of patents for invention referred to in Article L. 612-9, as well as, at the request of the Minister for Defence, the extension and lifting of prohibitions on the disclosure and free working of patents for invention referred to in Articles L. 612-10, L. 614-5 and L. 614-21;

2° The registration and publication of trademarks or service marks and the examination of applications for invalidity and revocation of trademarks mentioned in 2° of Article L. 411-1;

3° The issue of certificates of identity and information concerning prior art in relation to trademarks or service marks;

4° The organisation of the deposit, conservation and making available to the public of cultures of micro-organisms used by an invention for which a patent is applied for;

5° The centralisation, registration, conservation of design deposits and their publication ;

6° The keeping of registers of patents, trademarks and designs, the recording of all acts affecting the ownership of patents for inventions, trademarks for goods or services and designs;

7° The application of the provisions contained in the laws and regulations on the temporary protection of industrial property at exhibitions, on industrial awards and on marks of origin ;

8° The application of international agreements and the implementation of cooperation actions in industrial property matters, and in particular administrative relations with the World Intellectual Property Organisation , the European Patent Organisation, the European Union Intellectual Property Office and the national or regional industrial property offices of the European Union ;

9° The keeping of the National Register of Companies;

10° The keeping of entries made until 31 December 2022 in the National Register of Commerce and Companies and of deeds filed until that same date in the appendix to the said register ;

11° Making available to the public the information and documents contained in the registers mentioned in 9° and 10°, in accordance with the rules applicable to these registers;

12° Centralising, storing and making available to the public any technical and legal documentation concerning industrial property;

13° Managing the Official Industrial Property Bulletin;

14° Examining applications for approval and requests to amend the specifications of the geographical indications defined in Article L. 721-2, the approval and withdrawal of approval of these specifications;

15° The management, in its capacity as the single body provided for by Article L. 123-33 of the Commercial Code, of the IT service mentioned in Article R. 123-2 of the same code, as well as the management of the IT service referred to in Article R. 123-30-9 of the same code;

16° The recording and, where applicable, the storage and return of envelopes intended to facilitate proof of the contents and certain dating of applications relating to industrial property, under conditions laid down by decision of its Director General. That decision may provide that such filing, as well as any transmission or communication relating to that procedure, shall be carried out solely in electronic form.

For the exploitation of its documentary holdings, the Institute may set up data banks, where appropriate, in conjunction with other files or registers. To this end, it may set up subsidiary companies or take financial holdings.