What is the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property?
It is an international treaty accepted by more than 140 countries, including the United States. The basic tenets of the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property are to: • Provide the same rights in patent and trademark matters that it gives to its own citizens to people from other countries as well. • Provide for the right of priority in the case of patents, trademarks and industrial designs (design patents). This gives the applicant the right to apply for protection in all the other member countries, within a certain period of time, based on a regular first application filed in one of the member countries. These later applications will be regarded as if they had been filed on the same day as the first application, provided the subsequent applications are filed within 12 months in the case of first applications for patent and six months in the case of industrial designs and trademarks.
