The French patent at low cost
In France, according to Article L612.20 of the French Intellectual Property Code, the main fees related to the acquisition of a patent are reduced for the following applicants :
– natural persons, namely individuals, artisans, retailers within individual companies, liberal professions, etc …,
– small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), namely employing no more than 1000 employees and having no more than 25% of the capital held by an entity employing more than 1000 people and
– nonprofit organizations (NPOs) in research or education sectors, namely schools, laboratories, research institutes, etc.
For these three kinds of applicants, a 50% fee cut is provided for :
– the patent application filing fee (36€),
– the search report fee (520€),
– the patent issuance fee (90€),
– the fee for additional claims (42€/claim) and
– renewal fees for the five first years (38€/year) from the patent application filing date.
A 25% fee cut is provided for the 6th year (76€) and the 7th year (96€) renewal fees. The following renewal fees are not subjected to a fee cut. Some taxes related to patent applications with foreign priority and appeal procedures are furthermore not subjected to a fee cut. The total saving generated for a patent application with 10 claims is around 500€.
For benefiting from this fee cut, SMEs and NPOs must submit a belonging certificate to one of these two categories dated and signed within 1 month from the patent application filing date. Beyond that term, the fee cut will be rejected. For natural persons, this fee cut is furthermore automatic.
For a patent application filed by several applicants, each of the applicants must belong to one the three categories mentioned above and provide a belonging certificate if they aren’t natural persons.