Enforcement & Litigation
Since July 2, 2026, the home address of an individual who files a French trademark is no longer public. When you have to warn, oppose, or sue that person, here is how to find them anyway.
Until recently, finding who owns a French trademark was easy: the INPI (the French Industrial Property Office, France’s trademark, design, and patent registry) published the applicant’s full postal address, readable on DATA INPI, the office’s free public database. For individuals, that is over.
French Decree No. 2026-576 of June 30, 2026 (published in the Official Journal on July 1, in force July 2) changed what the INPI publishes about applicants who are natural persons. For an individual applicant, the National Trademark Register and the BOPI (the Bulletin Officiel de la Propriété Industrielle, France’s weekly trademark gazette) now show only four things: last name, first name(s), city, and country of residence. The full home address is gone.
Three features matter for enforcement. The masking is automatic: the applicant does not ask for it and cannot opt out. It is not retroactive, so filings published before July 2, 2026 keep the old full address. And the decree gives third parties no procedure to obtain the hidden one. That sets it apart from other French privacy regimes. AFNIC, the .fr registry, masks individuals’ WHOIS data but runs a disclosure procedure for anyone invoking a prior right. A separate 2025 decree lets company officers keep their home address off French corporate-registry extracts. Decree 2026-576 offers no such channel. The INPI still holds the full address; it simply no longer hands it out. The same limitation now applies to individual French design and patent filings.
On the public register, an individual applicant now looks almost anonymous: a name, a town, and nothing you can write to. French enforcement needs the defendant’s real address at nearly every step, and the register no longer supplies it.
US counsel are used to reading an owner straight off USPTO records, and the EU register works the same way. France is now the exception: for individuals, its register stops at the city. Before commissioning anyone, run the free checks.
If one of these closes the gap, you may never need step one below.
When the free registers do not produce a usable address, the firm runs targeted investigations. The point is to locate the individual through lawful, documented sources: the EUIPO register, BOPI publications made before July 2, 2026, French corporate registries, domain-name records tied to the brand, and open sources. The output is a current, verifiable address for a letter or a commissaire de justice.
Our investigations start from €300 (excluding VAT). What that buys depends on the file. A company officer who also holds an EU trademark is quick work; a private individual who has left no other public trace takes more digging. We tell you early whether the open-source route is likely to succeed, before you pay to chase a dead end. Once investigations produce the address, a cease-and-desist, an opposition, or a suit can proceed at once.
Investigations do not always reach an address. A private individual with no corporate footprint and no earlier public filing can be genuinely hard to place. The INPI holds the full address, but gives third parties no way to ask for it. That is where a judge comes in.
The firm can seek a court order requiring the disclosure of the address the INPI holds, for the purpose of enforcing your right. It is the same category of tool a French court uses to lift online anonymity when a legitimate right is at stake. Because the outcome turns on the specific facts, we quote this step on request rather than from a list, and we say plainly what a court will weigh: the right you are asserting, why the address is necessary, and why the free routes and the investigations were not enough.
One practical note. According to preliminary information from the INPI’s information service (a phone exchange in July 2026, not yet confirmed in writing), even requesting a copy of the application file would not give access to the address. We treat that as unconfirmed and plan around it rather than relying on it.
There is a flip side that works in some clients’ favor. If you file a French trademark as an individual, your home address is now automatically kept off the public register and the BOPI, from the July 2, 2026 filing onward. You do nothing to obtain that protection. For founders, creators, and sole proprietors who never wanted their home address searchable next to their brand, this is a real improvement. We cover it as part of French trademark registration.
Because Decree 2026-576, in force since July 2, 2026, limits what the INPI publishes about an individual applicant to name, city, and country. Companies are unaffected: their address is still published in full.
Start with the free registers: pre-July 2026 BOPI issues, the EUIPO register, and French corporate filings. If the person left no usable trace there, professional investigations or a court order are what remain.
A French court can be asked to order the disclosure of information a party needs to enforce a right. The decree creates no disclosure procedure of its own, so this is the formal route when investigations fall short. The result depends on the facts of each case.
A French writ of summons (assignation) must state the defendant’s address, so service cannot proceed on a name alone. Establish the address first, through investigations or a court order, then instruct a commissaire de justice to serve; see French court proceedings.
For individual applicants it removed the full home address from the BOPI and the National Trademark Register, leaving name, city, and country. The change is automatic and not retroactive, and the same limitation now covers individual French design and patent filings. You can read the decree on Légifrance (in French).
Yes. The EU Intellectual Property Office register stays fully public, addresses included. If the person also holds an EU trademark or an international registration designating the EU, the address is usually there, and checking it costs nothing.
Need to reach an individual who owns a French trademark? Contact us with the name and the mark, and we will tell you within days whether the register, an investigation, or a court order is the right route, in English.
Written by Julien Lacker, attorney (avocat) admitted to the Paris Bar, certified specialist in intellectual property law and in information-technology law. Last reviewed: August 2026.
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