Insights
July 17, 2026 · Julien Lacker
France quietly rewrote several of its trademark rules this summer. Decree No. 2026-576 of June 30, 2026 (published in the Official Journal on July 1, in force July 2) runs to 42 articles and touches more than one register. The headline change is a privacy one, and it is the one US counsel will feel first: for individual applicants, France no longer publishes a home address. But the same text also lengthens the INPI’s opposition timetable, tightens who can add to an opposition file, and retires the registered letter. Here is what actually changed, and what it means when you enforce a right in France.
Until July 2, 2026, anyone who filed a French trademark in their own name (not through a company) had their full postal address published for the world to read. That is over. The decree amends two provisions of the Intellectual Property Code. Article R.712-8 governs what appears in the BOPI (the Bulletin Officiel de la Propriété Industrielle, France’s weekly trademark gazette) when an application is published; Article R.714-2 governs the National Trademark Register kept by the INPI (France’s Industrial Property Office). Both now say the same thing about a natural person: only last name, first name(s), city, and country of residence are published. The street, number, and postal code are gone.
The change has three sharp edges for enforcement. It applies by itself, with nothing for the applicant to request and no way to opt out. It looks forward only, leaving every publication made before July 2, 2026 online with its full address. And it comes with no counterpart: no provision lets a third party ask for what is now hidden. That makes France an outlier. The USPTO and EUIPO registers both hand you an owner’s address in seconds; the French register, for an individual, now stops at the city. When that filing is the one you need to act against, how to identify and locate a French trademark owner sets out the lawful routes that remain.
For individual filings, the same address limitation reaches French designs and patents, though the decree phases its patent provisions on a separate timeline (they do not apply to proceedings already pending on July 2, 2026, unlike the trademark changes).
The privacy reform arrives without a valve. Two comparable French regimes both built one. AFNIC, the registry for .fr domain names, has masked individual registrants’ WHOIS data since the GDPR became applicable, but it runs a disclosure procedure for anyone who can invoke a prior right. Company directors, for their part, have been able to keep their home address off corporate-registry extracts since a 2025 decree. Decree 2026-576 organizes nothing of the sort. The INPI still holds the full address in its files; it simply no longer publishes it, and gives a rights holder no channel to obtain it.
One practical caveat, held at arm’s length. According to preliminary information from the INPI’s information service (a telephone exchange in July 2026, not confirmed in writing), even requesting a copy of the application file under the existing procedure would not give access to the address. We treat that as unconfirmed. Where the free registers and investigations fall short, a court order requiring disclosure may be the route, the same category of tool a French court uses to lift online anonymity when a legitimate right is at stake. That is the point at which a delayed cease-and-desist or a stalled infringement suit before the French courts becomes a real problem.
Since July 2, 2026, DATA INPI shows only the name, city, and country of an applicant who filed as an individual. Several lawful routes remain. Check the EUIPO register first: if the same person owns an EU trademark, the EUIPO still publishes owners’ addresses in full. Look for anything the same applicant published before July 2, 2026, since earlier BOPI entries keep the complete address. If the applicant runs a company, French corporate filings may state a usable address. When the open sources come up empty, the address the INPI keeps in its files can be sought through a court order. The step-by-step version, with what to try in which order, is in our guide to finding a French trademark owner’s address.
The decree also moves a deadline that governs every French opposition. Articles R.712-16-2 (opposition) and R.716-8 (administrative invalidity and revocation) now give the INPI four months, instead of three, to issue its decision once the adversarial part of the proceeding has closed.
Read that precisely, because it is easy to misread. This is not extra time for the parties to argue. The exchange deadlines during the instruction phase are set elsewhere and do not change. Four months is the time the director general of the INPI has to rule after the file closes. The stakes are built into French law: if the INPI does not decide within that period, the opposition or application is deemed rejected. So a longer clock is not a strategic gift to either side; it is a longer wait for the same outcome. If you run a portfolio of French oppositions before the INPI, budget for a decision that can now land a month later than before.
Article R.712-15, which decides whether an opposition is admissible at all, gains two changes that pull in opposite directions. First, an opponent facing a formal defect can now regularize the file: supply the missing document or particular, not merely argue against the objection. Fewer oppositions should die on a curable technicality. Second, the article adds a new bar. Observations or evidence filed after the opposition by a person who lacks standing, or who does not meet the representation conditions, are inadmissible as of right. The INPI need not rule on the merits of that late intervention; it simply sets it aside.
Article R.718-4 retires the registered letter. Notifications in French trademark proceedings were made by registered mail with acknowledgment of receipt (with an electronic option). They are now made by any electronic means that can attest the date of receipt, full stop. The practical point sits in the detail: it is the declared electronic address that now starts procedural clocks running, so keep the address the INPI has on file current and monitored.
The decree came into force on July 2, 2026 and applies to proceedings already pending on that date, with the trademark provisions taking effect at once. Two limits are worth holding onto. The address masking is forward-looking only: earlier publications keep their addresses, so a single pre-July filing by the same person can undo the anonymity. And the decree’s patent provisions follow their own schedule, separate from the trademark changes above.
For a US-facing practice, the through-line is simple. France did not make its trademark system harder to use. It made one specific thing harder to do from your desk: find the individual behind a filing. Everything else in Decree 2026-576 is housekeeping by comparison. When a French individual is the name on the register you need to reach, start with how to locate a French trademark owner.
Key takeaways
- For individual applicants, French trademark records now show only name, city, and country. The full address is masked automatically, is not retroactive, and companies are unaffected.
- The decree creates no procedure for a third party to obtain the hidden address; the INPI still holds it.
- The INPI’s deadline to decide an opposition, invalidity, or revocation moves from three to four months after the adversarial part closes. It is a longer wait, not more time to argue.
- Oppositions can now be regularized for curable defects; late filings by a person without standing are inadmissible.
- French trademark notifications are now fully electronic; the declared electronic address starts the clocks.
Applicable law
French Intellectual Property Code, as amended by Decree No. 2026-576 of June 30, 2026: Art. R.712-8 and R.714-2 (publication and register, individual applicant’s address); Art. R.712-16-2 and R.716-8 (three- to four-month decision period); Art. R.712-15 (opposition admissibility, regularization, and late filings); Art. R.718-4 (electronic notification). The decree is available in French on Légifrance: https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/eli/decret/2026/6/30/2026-576/jo/texte