Trademark Docketing in Bordeaux.

Trademark docketing Bordeaux brand owners need has a split personality: a classic French clock at INPI plus a second, overlapping constraint that exists almost nowhere else in the same density — the wine geographical indications. A château runs an ordinary INPI or EUIPO word-and-label mark, yet the words "Bordeaux", "Médoc" or "Saint-Émilion" are AOC/AOP designations policed by a different body entirely. PerspireIP keeps the trademark clock — filing-date renewal, the two-month opposition, the five-year non-use horizon — while flagging where the GI boundary begins.

Why trademark docketing Bordeaux portfolios run on the INPI filing-date clock

A French registered trademark is governed by the Institut National de la Propriété Industrielle (INPI), and the single most important thing a Bordeaux docket must get right is the anchor date. A French national mark lasts ten years and runs from the filing date (date de dépôt), not from the day the certificate issues. A docket that counts from the registration date will schedule every renewal late, and for a château or a deep-tech exporter that single error can cost the mark. Protection is renewable in ten-year periods indefinitely, each new term still measured from that original filing anniversary.

Most Bordeaux brands of any scale carry two registrations: a French national mark at INPI for the home market and an EU trademark at EUIPO in Alicante for the wider European market. Each sits on its own clock — both measured from filing, but with different offices, fees and procedural fuses — and the two anniversaries rarely coincide. The trademark docketing Bordeaux owners need therefore reconciles the French and EU rights side by side, records which right protects which territory, and keys every renewal to the correct filing-date anniversary rather than to a certificate.

• Filing-date anchor — the French ten-year term runs from the date de dépôt, not the registration certificate
• Two registers — an INPI national mark for France and a separate EUTM at EUIPO for the EU
• Independent clocks — both run from filing, but the anniversaries and procedures differ
• Right-to-territory map — the docket records which registration actually protects France

The INPI ten-year term, renewal and the six-month grace period

Renewal of a French mark falls due in the year before the ten-year term expires, and INPI allows a six-month grace period after expiry during which the mark can still be renewed on payment of the fee plus a late surcharge. Miss the grace period and the registration lapses; the name then returns to the pool and a competitor can file for it. For a Bordeaux portfolio that may run hundreds of word and label marks across classes 32, 33 and 35, keeping each renewal inside the window rather than in the surcharged tail is both cheaper and safer.

The parallel EUTM renews on the same rhythm — ten years from filing, with a six-month grace period on a surcharge — but at EUIPO, on its own anniversary and in euros. A château that sells a flagship grand vin and a second wine under different label marks, plus a house word mark, can easily hold a dozen rights with staggered dates across both registers. Because both offices revise their fee schedules periodically, we confirm the live INPI and EUIPO figures before every payment rather than relying on a stored number.

• Renewal window — due in the year before the ten-year expiry, measured from filing
• Six-month grace — late renewal possible after expiry on payment of a surcharge, then the mark lapses
• Parallel EUTM — renews ten years from filing at EUIPO with its own grace period and euro fees
• Live fees — INPI and EUIPO price lists confirmed before each payment, never assumed

The two-month opposition fuse, PACTE invalidity and the five-year non-use clock

France opens its opposition window before registration: once an application is published, third parties have two months to oppose before INPI. That is a short and unextendable fuse by comparison with many systems, so a Bordeaux owner watching for a conflicting château name or a look-alike label must act fast — and must equally be ready to defend its own new filing inside that same two-month window. The parallel EUTM uses a different clock: three months from publication of the application at EUIPO. Both belong on the docket beside the renewal dates.

Since the PACTE law (2019–2020), invalidity and revocation actions against French marks can be brought as an administrative procedure directly at INPI, alongside the courts — a faster, cheaper route that also makes a Bordeaux owner’s own weak or unused marks easier to attack. The related exposure is non-use: a French mark is revocable after five years without genuine use in France. Use must touch the French market, and dated proof matters, so the trademark docketing Bordeaux owners rely on tracks the five-year horizon and keeps evidence ready for the marks worth defending. Note that the UPC and the Paris central division are a patent forum and have no role here.

• Two-month opposition — runs from publication of the application at INPI, pre-registration and unextendable
• EUTM opposition — three months from publication of the application at EUIPO, a separate fuse
• PACTE route — invalidity and revocation can be filed administratively at INPI, not only in court
• Five-year non-use — genuine use in France required, or the mark becomes revocable

Wine, AOC/AOP and the château brand docket

Bordeaux is the densest appellation landscape in the world — around sixty AOCs, from the regional Bordeaux AOC down to Médoc, Saint-Émilion, Pomerol, Pauillac, Margaux, Graves and Sauternes. These names are geographical indications (AOC, and its EU form AOP), and they are administered by the INAO, not by INPI. A GI is not a trademark: it does not renew on a ten-year trademark clock, it cannot be owned by one producer, and no later trademark may monopolise or evoke it. That is the critical docketing boundary — the AOC layer sits outside the trademark calendar entirely and is governed by INAO’s product specification (cahier des charges).

What a château or négociant actually dockets as a trademark is the private layer on top: the château word mark, the label and crest as figurative marks, and sometimes a collective or certification mark run by a producers’ grouping or the interprofessional body (the CIVB). Those marks do renew on the ordinary INPI/EUIPO filing-date clock, face the two-month opposition and the five-year non-use test, and must be drafted so they claim the brand without trespassing on the AOC term. The trademark docketing Bordeaux wine houses need keeps those private marks correctly timed while flagging, clearly, where the INAO-governed GI boundary takes over.

• GIs are not trademarks — AOC/AOP names like Médoc or Saint-Émilion are administered by INAO and sit outside the renewal docket
• What does renew — the château word mark, label and crest figurative marks, on the INPI/EUIPO filing-date clock
• Collective and certification marks — producer-group and CIVB marks that follow ordinary trademark rules and deadlines
• The boundary flagged — brand marks docketed by us; the GI layer identified as INAO territory, not INPI

Aerospace, space and photonics portfolios around the Route des Lasers

Bordeaux is not only wine. Mérignac and the wider Gironde host one of France’s strongest aeronautics, space and defence bases — Dassault Aviation (Rafale assembly), ArianeGroup (rocket propulsion at Le Haillan), plus Thales, Safran, Daher and Sabena Technics — around three hundred companies in all. These are deep-tech brands with international footprints, and their marks need protection well beyond France: a French INPI mark for the home base, an EUTM for Europe, and a Madrid international registration behind both for export markets.

Alongside them sits the photonics and laser cluster — the Route des Lasers, the ALPHA-RLH competitiveness cluster of more than two hundred and sixty members, the optics technology centre ALPhANOV, and the CEA’s Laser Mégajoule at Le Barp. This is a pipeline of research-driven spin-outs that protect a scientific brand in France first and then scale internationally. Their docket shape differs from a château’s: fewer label marks, more house and product word marks across classes 9 and 42, each on the INPI and EUTM filing-date clocks with Madrid as the second renewal cycle for the exporting names.

• Aerospace and defence — Dassault Aviation, ArianeGroup, Thales, Safran and Daher anchor a large export-facing portfolio base
• Photonics cluster — the Route des Lasers, ALPHA-RLH, ALPhANOV and the Laser Mégajoule drive a deep-tech spin-out pipeline
• Portfolio shape — house and product word marks in classes 9 and 42, fewer figurative label marks
• Madrid as second clock — a WIPO international registration renews centrally for the exporting brands

How PerspireIP runs a Bordeaux trademark docket

We begin by reconciling the register. For every brand we confirm which rights exist — the INPI national mark, the EUTM, any Madrid international registration — record which one actually protects France, and key each renewal to its correct filing-date anniversary rather than to a certificate. For a wine house we separate the two layers explicitly: the private château word, label and collective marks that we docket on the trademark clock, and the AOC/AOP designation that belongs to INAO and does not renew like a mark at all. That single distinction prevents the most common Bordeaux filing error.

From there the docket runs as a living calendar that surfaces every deadline early: the INPI renewal with its six-month grace period, the parallel EUTM and Madrid renewals, the two-month French opposition fuse and the three-month EUIPO one, and the five-year non-use horizon with PACTE invalidity exposure in mind. We confirm INPI, EUIPO and WIPO fees against the live schedules before every payment, keep each matter confidential, and work alongside your French or European trademark attorney as a specialist docketing partner — we run the calendar, not the legal advice. Send us the register extract and we return a clean, reconciled Bordeaux docket with every clock, anchor and GI boundary mapped and dated.

• Register reconciliation — INPI, EUTM and Madrid rights matched, with the France-protecting right recorded
• Two-layer wine docket — private château marks tracked on the trademark clock; the AOC/AOP flagged as INAO territory
• Correct anchoring — renewals to the filing-date anniversary, non-use to the five-year French-use horizon
• Every fuse watched — the two-month INPI and three-month EUIPO oppositions plus PACTE invalidity exposure
• One point of control — INPI, EUIPO and WIPO deadlines managed centrally, fees confirmed live

IP Landscape & Resources in Bordeaux

Key intellectual-property authorities and venues relevant to Bordeaux:

• INPI — Institut National de la Propriété Industrielle — the French national industrial property office that registers and renews French trademarks on a ten-year filing-date clock, runs the two-month pre-registration opposition, and hosts the PACTE administrative invalidity and revocation procedures
• WIPO — Madrid System — administers the Madrid Protocol; Bordeaux exporters in wine, aerospace and photonics protect brands beyond France through a Madrid international registration, renewed centrally at WIPO in Geneva on its own ten-year cycle
• EUIPO — the EU Intellectual Property Office in Alicante; an EU trademark covers the 27 member states, runs ten years from filing with a three-month opposition from publication, and renews on a clock separate from the French national mark
• INAO — Institut National de l'Origine et de la Qualité — the French authority for geographical indications that administers the Bordeaux AOC/AOP wine designations (Médoc, Saint-Émilion, Pauillac and the rest) — a GI regime separate from the INPI trademark register and outside the renewal docket

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