Industrial property attorney
Our firm of industrial property attorneys help you to put in place an industrial property strategy. We organise meetings at which the various projects are reviewed with a view to determining the type or types of protection that should be envisaged (project review) and the territories. We determine with the inventors the necessary information which they have to provide in order to enable the drafting of a patent application. Depending on the circumstances, we advise them that a patentability analysis and/or a freedom-to-operate analysis should be carried out. Finally, we draft and file the patent application.
Our legal specialists are experts in trademarks, designs, internet law, the protection of domain names, disputes and litigation, judicial procedures, and contracts, in particular those relating to industrial property.
For five decades, we have been renowned in France and overseas for our expertise in audits and strategy for the management of patent, trademark and design portfolios.
Administrative management
An administrative team trained in French, European and international procedures looks after the day-to-day administrative management of the files.
In addition, our digitalisation of property-right portfolios enable easier readability, immediate inspection of the status of a file and the preparation of customized reports in response to requests.
Our policy
- Clarity, efficiency, speed
- Availability (frequent visits)
- Follow-up meetings (every three months, six months or year, as preferred)
- One single contact person per field, as well as an employee familiar with the portfolio and the files under process.
Training
- Generally enhancing awareness of industrial property
- Specific subjects
- “reflex pi” training
With a view to continually improving our collaboration with our clients, we also offer training in industrial property, on the basis of a maximum of a half-day.
Costs
Our services are all billed at set rates. Confirmatory cost estimates can of course be provided on request and, in the case of special services, prior estimates of costs are drawn up.
Audits and strategic analyses
Strategic advice and our mission
Strategic advice and our mission
Our job is to advise you. We assist you with your strategic choices by means of overall portfolio analyses, audits, strategic analyses vis-à-vis the client’s markets, filing / renewal recommendations, and opportunity analyses on the basis of needs, costs and risks.
In relation to patents, our mission is to provide you with guidance regarding, for example, searches of the prior art which are necessary for assessing the novelty and relevance of the invention, drafting of the description and claims, filing procedures in France and overseas and opposition proceedings before the E.P.O., monitoring patents filed by third parties, and negotiation and drafting of your assignment, licensing, secrecy, confidentiality or know-how agreements.
In relation to trademarks, our mission is to conduct searches of prior rights, filing procedures, renewal procedures and opposition procedures in France and overseas, monitoring of trademarks filed by third parties, and negotiation and drafting of your assignment or licensing agreements.
Our objectives are to ensure that you have the best possible protection without proliferation of costs, and to defend your rights.
Technological monitoring
Monitoring of competitor’s industrial property rights is essential for an effective corporate strategy.
Every industrial property right is published and catalogued, thereby enabling the public to be aware of its content and to determine its scope. Accordingly, it is possible to know the domains reserved by competitors, to know the prior art in a particular field and to know the protection strategy of a given company.
This is known as “technology watch”, a now overused expression.
Our firm is connected thanks to business tools to databases which catalogue national and international patents and trademarks. We can also answer any questions you have about document searches, monitoring, etc.
Such monitoring is vital to enable opposition proceedings to be brought within the time limits laid down by the various pieces of European and international law, in particular in relation to patents, trademarks and intellectual property.
Specific price quotations are applied depending on the technologies monitored.
Support for young companies
LE GUEN & ASSOCIÉS is a partner of numerous Young Innovative Companies (JEIs) in relation to the protection of innovation, image protection and contractual protection, and in various related areas. LE GUEN & ASSOCIÉS assists JEIs in obtaining founds.
The policy for the development of JEIs is highly specific and requires responsiveness and customized support.
Our legal know-how and the technical expertise of our counsel engineers and legal experts in relation to new technologies are an asset for these up-and-coming companies. Our JEI clients are ready to face major challenges, and so are our multidisciplinary teams!
The Young Innovative Company regime
The legislator has put in place a regime enabling Young Innovative Companies (JEIs) to benefit from substantial tax reliefs and reductions in social security contributions for a period of eight years.
Tax relief
Some sartups (called Jeune Entreprise Innovante in France) thus benefit from an exemption from income tax or corporation tax for their first financial year, and then from a 50% exemption for the following financial year, and from an exemption from territorial economic tax – CET (corporate real estate tax – CFE; and corporate value added tax – CVAE) until the end of the seventh year following that of their creation.
A reduction in social security contributions
JEIs likewise benefit from an exemption from employers’ contributions in relation to the salaries of persons over 50% of whose time is spent on research work (research engineers, technicians, industrial property lawyers, managers and project managers, etc.).
However, the relief is subject to caps:
- the gross monthly remuneration per person must not exceed EUR 6,599.78,
- the annual contribution limit per establishment cannot exceed EUR 193,080.
