Glossary
French: Code de la propriété intellectuelle (CPI)
The CPI is the Code de la propriété intellectuelle (roughly code duh la pro-pree-eh-TAY ANN-tell-eck-tchoo-ell) — the French Intellectual Property Code. It gathers in one codified statute both copyright provisions and industrial property provisions; the broad term “intellectual property” was deliberately chosen. (Some court decisions mistakenly cite a “Code de la propriété industrielle” — no such code exists; only the Intellectual Property Code does.)
Trademark law is covered in Book 7 of the CPI. For a US reader, the CPI’s trademark provisions are the functional counterpart of the Lanham Act, but within a civil-law codification: the CPI contains the rules on infringement actions (action en contrefaçon) and the rules governing all proceedings before the INPI, including oppositions and the administrative trademark cancellation and invalidity procedures. Book 7 also houses the grounds for refusing or invalidating a mark — descriptiveness, deceptiveness and lack of distinctive character (Article L.711-2), and conflicts with earlier rights (Article L.711-3) — together with the statute of limitations for infringement claims (Article L.716-4-2) and the ground for revocation for genericide (Article L.714-6).
The CPI has two parts:
This L./R. numbering explains citations like “Article L.711-2 CPI” that US counsel will encounter in French opinions and correspondence. As a rule of thumb, the “L.” article states the rule and the corresponding “R.” article states the procedural mechanics for applying it — an opinion citing L.711-2 is making a substantive point about registrability, while one citing an “R.” article is usually describing a filing, notification or deadline mechanic before the INPI.
The CPI is essential for French trademarks and INPI proceedings, and it evolves regularly — the article protecting reputed marks (marque de renommée), for instance, has been amended several times in recent years, most recently to align French law with the EU trademark directive. Because the numbering can shift across reforms, US counsel relying on an older French law summary should confirm the article number is still current before citing it in correspondence or a US filing.
The Lanham Act is the closest functional analog, but the comparison has structural limits. The Lanham Act is a single federal statute enacted by Congress and interpreted through case law; the CPI is a full code spanning patents, trademarks, designs, copyright and trade secrets, organized into numbered “Books,” with trademark law confined to Book 7 and read alongside implementing regulatory decrees. A US practitioner used to finding everything trademark-related under 15 U.S.C. should expect French trademark rules to sit inside a broader intellectual-property architecture, with cross-references into the regulatory (“R.”) articles for procedure — closer in spirit to how the Code of Federal Regulations supplements a US federal statute.
A US company’s outside French counsel cites “Article L.711-2 3° CPI” in an opinion refusing to clear a proposed mark as merely descriptive of the goods. US in-house counsel unfamiliar with the CPI’s numbering can look up the cited article to confirm exactly which absolute ground — descriptiveness, deceptiveness, or lack of distinctive character — is at issue, rather than treating “French trademark law” as an undifferentiated black box.
You will see CPI article citations in almost any French trademark registration opinion, in a trademark validity — absolute grounds analysis, and in correspondence about responding to a trademark opposition before the INPI. The code is the statutory backbone behind trademark law generally and behind the French trademark specifically, so it is worth knowing the Book 7 / L. / R. structure even if you never cite an article number yourself.