PATENT
First to file versus first to invent
To obtain intellectual property rights for an invention in France, the inventor must be the first to file, whereas the American system relies on the first to invent principle. This means that if somebody files the patent before the inventor (because of a leak of information for example), the inventor will lose his rights.
The grace period doesn’t exist in France
Any public disclosure of the invention will compromise the possibility to file a patent. This applies to lectures given in a conference or publications. If the patent has not been filed, to avoid any conflict, a confidential agreement is absolutely necessary before a meeting with a potential licensee. Companies or laboratories have one year from their application date for a French patent, to extend their protection rights outside of France. Companies can physically file their applications with the [1] or directly with the European Patent Office (EPO, with extension to 19 countries) for European patent applications. Patent applicants can also apply to the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organisation) for international protection by filing an international application covering a maximum of over one hundred countries. Applications for international patents, as for European patents, can be filed with the INPI or directly with the WIPO. Among the leading countries filing for international patents, France holds fifth place (with 4.9% of applications) behind the United States (39.8%), Germany (14.7%), Japan (9.8%) and the United Kingdom (6.4%).
[1] INPI->http://www.inpi.fr/->xxx