On December 1, 2020, the French National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI) became a WIPO Digital Access Service (DAS) participating office (depositing office). Applicants, with France as the first filing country, can now deposit certified copies of applications to WIPO-DAS allowing for electronic retrieval by other participating offices. Requests can be made to deposit a certified copy of an application to WIPO-DAS for any patent application with INPI as the Receiving Office (RO) having been filed on or after October 1, 2019. The cost for using this service is relatively inexpensive as it eliminates the cost of multiple copies of paper priority document when subsequently filing at other offices.
Oblon has worked with the DAS system for many years with other offices. The procedure is secure and easy to use allowing the applicants to simply provide the office of second filing with a four digit DAS access code so that they can automatically retrieve the document electronically.
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