IP Conventions
Paris Convention
Signed in 1883 and amended various times, the Paris Convention introduced a number of important provisions including national treatment and priority. The intellectual property systems of any contracting state are accessible to nationals of other states party to the convention, allowing the same degree of protection and the same legal remedies against infringement.
The right of priority provides an applicant from one contracting state the right to use the filing date of a first application (in one contracting state) as the effective filing date in another contracting state providing the other application(s) is filed within a certain time of the original application (6 months for trade marks and designs, 12 months for patents).