Office de Brevets

"Industrial Property", as such, appeared in France during the French Revolution. It was institutionalized by the law of 7 January 1791, which foresaw the creation of a bureau of "patentes". (The word is of minor linguistic note in that a few romance languages, among others, perhaps, have both words quite close to our "patent" and words fairly dissimilar.) The term was engaged in that age to designate what soon became known as "brevets". The word "patente" derives from the "lettres patentes" by which the king had given privileges to the old corporations. The law suggested having said patent bureau confided to the Baron Claude-Urbain Retz de Servières, director of the "société des inventions et découvertes". A law of 25 May 1791 completes the legislation delivering "brevets d'invention", which term then appeared. The patent administration is then put in place in less than two months, formally taking the form "Directoire des brevets", for which responsibility fell to the above-mentioned Baron de Servières.

Pertinent to us, the French patent office at the time of early aviation was the Office de Brevets, lasting as such from 1791-1900.

The immediate successor to the Office de Brevets was L'Office des brevets d'invention et des marques de fabrique, in 1900, renamed as the "Office national de la propriété industrielle", or "ONPI" en 1902. This was in turn succeeded by the INPI (France), in 1951.

Publications of the Office de Brevets included . . .

Some source info: Institut national de la propriété industrielle