What is the Paris Convention?

The Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, one of the 1st intellectual property treaties, was signed on 20th March 1883 in Paris, France. It set up a union for industrial property protection. This convention is still operative presently. Its substantive provisions have 3 major types, i.e. common rules, priority right and national treatment.

How Does the Paris Convention Work?

The 2nd and 3rd article of this treaty states that natural and juristic individuals who are either domiciled in or national of a state party to the Paris convention will enjoy the benefits, their corresponding laws provide to nationals in all other Union countries regarding the industrial property protection. In simple words, when a person submits an application for a trademark or a patent in a foreign member country of the Union, this application gets the same treatment as a national of this country. Moreover, if he is granted the intellectual property right (for example, an individual gets ownership of a registered trademark or a patent), the owner avails himself of the same legal remedy against any violation and protection as a national owner benefits from.

Priority right 

Other names of Paris Convention are Convention Priority Right, Union Priority Right and Paris Convention Priority Right. It was also set up by the 4th article of Paris Convention. It is considered as a cornerstone of the Paris Convention. It states that an applicant belonging to a contracting state will have a right of using its 1st filing date (in any contracting state) being an effective filing date in some other contracting state, on the condition that the applicant or his heir files a subsequent application within six months for trademarks and industrial designs or twelve months for utility and parents mod from the 1st filing.

Temporary protection for goods shown at some international exhibitions 

The Paris Convention Article 11(1) demands that the Countries of the Union provide temporary protection to trademarks, patentable inventions, industrial designs and utility models, concerning goods exhibited at officially recognized or official global exhibitions held in any of the territories.If a person applies for a trademark registration or a patent during a temporary protection period, then he will count the applications Priority date from the date when he was introduced to the goods at the exhibition instead of the date when he filed the application, in case the temporary protection mentioned in article 11(1) is implemented in such a way in national law. However, there are other sources for the Countries of the Union to apply in the national law temporary protection granted for the Paris Convention, article 11.It may also be, for instance, in case of exhibited inventions that are patentable, to provide temporary protection by other sources, namely, by suggesting that, during a specific period, this exhibition does not harm the invention novelty and that the individual, who is exhibiting the invention, will also be given protection against his invention usurpation by 3rd parties. Another chance of protection still contains the recognition of a prior use right supporting the exhibitor as against present rights received by 3rd parties. Mutual independence of trademarks and patents in several Countries of the Union. As per articles 4bis and 6 (for trademarks and patent respectively), for overseas, the member state will determine the application for trademark registration or a patent according to national law and not decided by the country of origin or other states. Trademark registrations and patent applications are independent among the countries of the contract.

History of the Paris Convention 

Eleven countries signed the Paris Convention in 1983 after they attended a diplomatic conference in 1880 in Paris. Those countries are Brazil, Guatemala, Netherlands, Serbia, Belgium, France, Italy, Portugal, Switzerland, Spain and EI Salvador. Later, 3 countries Serbia, EI Salvador and Guatemala denounced and applied the Convention again through accession.On 14th December 1900, the treaty was reviewed at Brussels, Belgium. On 2nd June 1911, it was revised at The Hague, Netherlands. Again on 6th November 1925, it was reviewed at London, United Kingdom. At Lisbon, Portugal on 2nd June 1934, at Stockholm, Portugal on 31st October 1958, on 14th July 1967 at Sweden and finally amended on 28th September 1979. 

Contracting parties

Main article: Parties list to the Paris Convention to protect the industrial property.

Paris Convention members (in green)

As of February 2017, the Paris Convention consists of one hundred and seventy-seven member countries of the contract. It shows that this Convention is the most widely adopted contract around the world. A noticeable thing is that Burma and Taiwan (China) are not member countries of the Paris Convention.

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