Right of Priority :

The Convention provides for the right of priority in the case of patents, marks and industrial designs. This right of priority denotes that on the basis of a regular first application filed in one of the contracting States, the applicant may, within a certain period of time (12 months for patents and utility models; 6 months for industrial designs and marks), apply for protection in any of the other contracting States and these later applications are regarded as if they had been filed on the same day as the first application. In other words, these later applications have priority over applications which may have been filed during the said period of time by other persons for the same invention, utility model, mark or industrial design. Moreover, these applications, since based on the first application, are not affected by any event that may have taken place in the interval, such as any publication of the invention or sale of articles bearing the mark or incorporating the industrial design. One of the major practical advantages of right of priority is that, when an applicant desires protection in several countries, he is not required to present all his applications at the same time but has six or 12 months at his disposal to decide in which countries he wishes protection and to organize with due care the steps needed to secure protection.