EPO express
Any person who has duly filed an application for a patent, or for the registration of a utility model, or of an industrial design, or of a trademark, in one of the countries of the Union, or his successor in title, shall enjoy, for the purpose of filing in the other countries, a right of priority during the periods hereinafter fixed.
The legal concept of priority gives an applicant with respect to novelty and inventive step the same legal status as if he had filed his application on the same day as his first application.
Watch out: The priority right is limited to a year.
The concept of priority was introduced under the provisions of an international treaty by the Paris Convention in 1883.
In order to claim a priority when filing a European patent application you or your predecessor in title MUST have duly filed an application for
in or for
Prior to the Paris Convention, the complexity and diversity of local patent laws made it nearly impossible for inventors to obtain patent protection in multiple countries. [BILIR 2011]
[BILIR 2011] Patent Laws, Product Lifecycle Lengths, and the Global Sourcing Decisions of U.S. MultinationalsL. Kamran Bilir, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305.
(c) EPO express 2020
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