Industrial property
A subset of intellectual property covering rights in creations with industrial application: patents, trademarks, designs and models, geographical indications, and plant variety rights. These rights require formal registration with a competent office to be enforceable against third parties.
In practice
Industrial property differs from copyright, which arises automatically, in that it is constitutive: an unregistered patent has no legal existence. In France, the INPI is the competent office for domestic filings. Patent prosecution is slow — 18 to 24 months for grant — and costly: 2,000 to 5,000 euros in official fees for a national patent, more for a European patent. A startup unable to afford full patent prosecution can document the date of invention via an enveloppe Soleau filing for 15 euros, creating defensible prior art.