UK Business IP Strategy in France: Market-Entry Guide

Why France needs its own IP plan after Brexit

For a UK business expanding into France, intellectual property is one of the first decisions that pays off or costs you later. Since the UK left the EU, a UK trade mark or registered design no longer gives protection in France, and you can no longer rely on a single EU-wide filing reaching France through your UK presence. That means France has to be planned for deliberately, as part of a broader European IP position rather than an afterthought bolted onto a UK registration. The good news is that France offers well-developed routes and unusually strong enforcement, so a UK entrant that gets the structure right early tends to hold a defensible position.

Start from the market itself. France is a major consumer economy with particular depth in luxury goods, fashion, cosmetics, wine and spirits, and design. If your brand touches any of those, the value sitting in your name, your look and your creative work is likely to be a large part of what you are actually selling. That raises the stakes on protecting it properly before you launch, not after a problem surfaces.

The national route versus the EU and regional routes

The central strategic choice is whether to protect nationally in France or to use EU and regional systems that cover France as part of a wider territory. Both are legitimate, and the right answer depends on where else you trade.

The national route runs through INPI, the French National Industrial Property Institute, which administers French trade marks, patents and designs. Filing nationally makes sense when France is your priority market and you do not need broad EU coverage, or when you want a focused right you can enforce locally without carrying the cost and breadth of an EU-wide registration.

The EU and regional routes sit alongside it. The EU Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) grants EU trade marks and registered EU designs that cover France together with the rest of the EU in a single right. For inventions, the European Patent Office (EPO) grants European patents, and a granted European patent can be given unitary effect as a Unitary Patent covering participating states in one right. Disputes over Unitary Patents, and over European patents that have not been opted out, are heard by the Unified Patent Court (UPC), whose central division is seated in Paris (France also operates a Paris local division), so France sits at the centre of that enforcement route. It is worth keeping these bodies distinct in your planning: INPI, EUIPO and the EPO are separate institutions with separate procedures, and a filing with one is not a filing with the others. For a UK business weighing how wide to go, our guide on choosing which countries to protect in sets out the trade-offs between national, regional and international filing.

On the patent side, France has modernised. Following the PACTE reforms, INPI now examines inventive step for French patent applications, so a French national patent is a more substantive right than it once was. France also offers a utility certificate as a lighter-weight protection for inventions, and a post-grant opposition procedure that lets third parties challenge a granted patent before the office. If patents matter to your entry, our France patents overview explains how these pieces fit together, and you should confirm the current procedure and any official fees with INPI or local counsel before filing.

Anti-counterfeiting strength and moral rights

Two features of French law make it especially attractive for brand-led and creative businesses. The first is enforcement. France has a strong anti-counterfeiting tradition, including customs powers to detain suspected infringing goods and civil procedures that can move quickly to seize evidence and stop infringing activity. For a luxury or fashion brand, that combination of border controls and fast civil remedies is a genuine deterrent, and it is one reason serious brands treat France as a market where enforcement is worth pursuing rather than tolerating.

The second is moral rights. French copyright, droit d'auteur (author's right), grants creators moral rights that are, as a general rule, perpetual, inalienable and cannot be waived in advance. These rights attach to the author personally and sit apart from the economic rights you might license or acquire. For a UK business commissioning design, photography, packaging or other creative work for the French market, this matters commercially: you can hold the economic rights while the author retains moral rights over attribution and the integrity of the work. It is a point to handle deliberately in contracts rather than assume the UK approach carries across.

Luxury and fashion: where French IP strategy earns its keep

If your business sits in luxury, fashion, beauty or design, France is close to the centre of that world, and IP strategy is not a compliance task but a commercial one. Registered designs protect the appearance of products, trade marks protect names and signs, and the anti-counterfeiting toolkit protects all of it from imitation. Getting the layering right, and filing before you show product publicly, is what preserves the exclusivity these sectors depend on. Our France luxury brand protection guide goes deeper on how design rights, trade marks and enforcement combine for premium brands, and it is the natural next read if this is your sector.

Timelines for registration and opposition vary by right and by route, and the position can change, so treat any specific period as a range to verify rather than a fixed rule; confirm the current timeframes with INPI or a French IP professional. The same applies to costs: official fees apply and you should confirm the current amount with INPI or local counsel.

How IPEnvoy can help

IPEnvoy is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice; this is general information, and you should confirm the current position with INPI's official website and a qualified local IP professional. What we do is connect UK businesses entering France with vetted local IP firms who handle the filing, enforcement and advice on the ground. If you are planning a French launch and want to talk the route choice through with someone who knows the market, start with our France jurisdiction hub and reach out for a referral to local counsel.