Patent law

Cabinet LEGRAND LESAGE-CATEL is a provider of advisory services taking into consideration the various aspects of making and protecting an invention:

• Existence of patentable invention:
  The first question to answer relates to the invention itself. Is it patentable? The next is the novelty of the technical means claimed and the associated inventive step.
• Title to industrial property:
  Have rules for granting a patent been complied with in form and substance?
• Titleholder or beneficiary:
  To whom does title of industrial property belong? What is the status of the inventor and, in particular of the employee inventor?
• Exclusive right to exploitation:
  Who is the rights holder? Who is entitled to act at law within the framework of contracts for the use of the invention under licence? How can the invention be used most efficiently?

Substantial investigatory work and advisory input is required from industrial property lawyers ahead of any legal proceedings, and this is a primary LEGRAND LESAGE-CATEL concern.

We are a provider of advice to companies and inventors well before any claims to industrial property are lodged, working with Industrial Property consultants to perform searches of the prior art, draft and register inventive patents, both within and beyond national boundaries.

LEGRAND LESAGE-CATEL advises companies and individuals on drafting contracts for license contracts for patented inventions.

It also advises on drafting contractual clauses covering inventions made by employees and related legal entitlements.

Litigation

LEGRAND LESAGE-CATEL is fully familiar with the procedures required to take legal action on grounds of patent infringement, notably judicial confiscation procedures, temporary injunctions and court orders to produce evidence or specified items.

The Tribunal de Grande Instance de Paris and the Cour d’Appel de Paris are the courts before which our law firm represents claimants. They have exclusive competency to rule on disputes over patented inventions.

The Cour d’Appel de Paris also rules on appeals against decisions made by the French National Institute of Industrial Property when patenting inventions.

Last but not least, LEGRAND LESAGE-CATEL is an intervener in proceedings before the Commission Nationale des Inventions de Salariés (National Commission of Employee Inventions) and with regard to any mediation and arbitration bodies set up in the particular circumstances of a dispute.

Our involvement extends to the representation of parties before the Unified Patent Court whose Central Division will be in Paris.