There is something ominous about the word “deadline” in English.
It makes you suspect some dire background. And rightly so, according to some online resources, which mention a line that you would cross at the risk of losing your life.
The French word “délai” sounds much less sinister, but the consequences of missing a “délai” are pretty much the same as those of missing a “deadline“, as a recent decision of the Paris Cour d’appel reminds us.
In this case, a French patent application was filed on November 6, 2015, claiming the benefit of the filing date of an earlier French application, namely April 1, 2015. This is what is sometimes conveniently referred to as an “internal priority claim“.
One of the requirements of claiming an internal priority is that you must provide a copy of the initial patent application (plus you must identify the modifications made in the later filing). As the applicant failed to do so upon filing the later application, the INPI issued a communication dated August 9, 2016 and notified on August 16 to the representative, inviting the applicant to submit the missing copy within a two-month period.
The applicant still did not file the requested document, so that a decision to refuse the application was issued on November 4, 2016, and notified on November 10, 2016 to the representative.
On January 8, 2018, the applicant filed a request for restoration of its rights. On August 17, 2018, the INPI issued a negative decision, holding that the request for restoration was inadmissible as it was filed past the statutory deadline.
The applicant lodged an appeal in front of the Paris Cour d’appel, which resulted in a judgment dated November 5, 2019.
The key provision in this case is article L. 612-16 Code de la propriété intellectuelle:
The applicant who failed to comply with a deadline set by the [INPI] may file a request for restoration of its rights, if it has a legitimate excuse and if the non-compliance directly resulted in a refusal of the patent application or of a request, in the lapse of the patent application or patent, or in the loss of any other right.
The appeal must be filed […] within a two-month deadline from the removal of the cause of non-compliance. The missing act must be performed within this deadline. The request is admissible only within a one-year deadline from the expiry of the missed deadline.
[…]
The main question is that of the starting point of the one-year deadline. The INPI currently considers (and this is reflected in its Guidelines for examination, section E.3.3.1.b, Oct. 2019 edition) that the “missed deadline” starting point is the “initially missed deadline”.
As a side note, this did not appear in the previous versions of the Guidelines – I suspect that they may have been modified based on the present case.
Here, the applicant was notified on August 16, 2016 of the invitation to file the copy of the earlier filing. The deadline for filing this copy expired on October 17, 2016. The INPI thus deemed that the one-year restoration deadline expired on October 17, 2017.
The applicant’s defense relied on the fact that there was another possible legal remedy, namely a request for further processing. See article R. 612-52 Code de la propriété intellectuelle:
If a patent application is refused or may be refused due to non-compliance with a time limit set by the [INPI], the refusal is not issued or is revoked if the applicant files a request for further processing. The request must be filed in writing within a two-month deadline from the communication of the refusal decision. The missing act must be performed within this deadline. The request is admissible only if the required fee is paid.
Thus, the applicant argued that the missed deadline was the two-month further processing deadline, and not the initial two-month deadline starting from the INPI communication. The request for restoration was thus filed with respect to the further processing deadline.
This reasoning will probably sound familiar to many European readers, as this is exactly the approach used at the EPO.
Applying this reasoning to the facts at hand, the deadline for requesting further processing expired on January 10, 2017 (date of notification of the refusal decision + 2 months), and therefore the one-year restoration deadline expired on January 10, 2018 – so that the request for restoration was timely filed.
But the appeal judges did not follow this argumentation. They stuck to the INPI’s interpretation of L. 612-16 and considered that the missed deadline used as a starting point must be the initial missed deadline, and not the further processing missed deadline. The INPI’s decision was accordingly confirmed.
Don’t ask me for the reasons why they chose one interpretation over the other. They just did, and there is no actual justification in the judgment.
This is all the more unfortunate as the summary of the facts reveals that two interesting case law decisions were discussed by the petitioner: a cassation ruling dated April 15, 1986, and a later judgment of the Paris Cour d’appel dated January 14, 1987.
The petitioner argued that the INPI misinterpreted the 1986 cassation ruling – from which it can be inferred that this ruling was the basis for the INPI’s position.
The facts underlying the 1986 ruling are that a patent application was refused for failure to pay the grant fee; a request for restoration was filed but it was held inadmissible as it was filed more than one year after the expiry of the time limit for paying the grant fee. The petitioner tried to take advantage of an additional two-month period corresponding to the filing of a request for further processing – to no avail.
The cassation judges stated the following:
The non-compliance of the deadline for the request for further processing is not excluded from the provisions of [what is now art. L.612-16]. But the provisions of [what is now art. R. 612-52] do not result in extending the one-year deadline set in the second paragraph of [what is now art. L.612-16]. The Cour d’appel held that, irrespective of the grounds for the request for restoration, it is only admissible within a one-year deadline from the final date on which the initially omitted act had to be performed, and therefore rightly justified its decision.
This is quite clear, right? The one-year deadline must be computed from the expiry of the initial deadline. Well, not so fast.
Looking at the specifics of the case that led to the 1986 cassation ruling, it turns out that, in that case, the request for restoration had been filed with respect to the initial time limit (i.e. the time limit for paying the grant fee). It had not been filed with respect to the (missing) request for further processing.
Let’s now turn to the second case discussed by the petitioner. It is an appeal judgment which was issued after the 1986 cassation ruling. In this case, it was also the grant fee which was not paid in time. But the difference is that the applicant filed a request for restoration with respect to the (missing) request for further processing.
And the appeal judges computed the one-year deadline from the expiry of the period for requesting further processing, not from the expiry of the initial deadline for paying the grant fee:
[…] The petition is admissible as to time limits. Indeed, according to [what is now art. L.612-16] the time limit for filing a request for restoration is one year from the expiry of the deadline not complied with. The request for further processing was due by April 17, 1982, so that the time limit for filing the request for restoration expired on April 17, 1983. The request for restoration was filed on April 15, 1983.
In summary, reading between the lines, we have:
- On the one hand, a 1986 cassation ruling which could at first sight be seen as supporting the INPI’s position, except that the facts were different and that the relevant statement in the ruling is ambiguous. There is a reference to “the initially omitted act” but it is unclear what we should make of it. The cassation judges did simply not have to decide on a request for restoration with respect to a request for further processing.
- On the other hand, a 1987 appeal decision based on facts similar to the present facts, and that is manifestly contradictory with the decision commented on today.
It is thus a real pity that the Cour d’appel did not seriously address these issues.
I would also add that, one a purely pragmatic standpoint, it seems to me that there may be some contradiction in the INPI’s approach (and in the court’s present approach) to this matter. Indeed, the INPI acknowledges that a request for restoration may be filed with respect to a missed deadline for a request for further processing. This is stated in the table that you can find on the last page of the Guidelines for examination.
But what is the point in requesting restoration of right with respect to the further processing deadline, if the one-year time limit is to be computed from the initial missed deadline? I cannot think of any situation in which requesting restoration with respect to the further processing deadline would then be of any use.
I would not like to conclude this post without wishing all readers a very happy new year.
I hope that I have not missed the deadline for doing so – but hey, I have always heard that it is all right to send your best wishes until January 31. This may not be true elsewhere, but as you can see there is some cultural specificity about French deadlines.
CASE REFERENCE: Cour d’appel de Paris, pôle 5 chambre 1, November 5, 2019, … v. Directeur Général de l’INPI, RG No. 18/20057.
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