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PARIS CONVENTION TREATY

SPP SCHOOL OF PHARMACY AND TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT SVKMS NMIMS (DEEMED UNIVERSITY) MUMBAI

Review:

Mother of All Industrial (Intellectual) property


Harmonization Processes Beginning in 1883, revised many times, last being in1967 Amended in 1979. It comprises of 30 articles comprising of Intellectual Property instrument including patent, copyright, trade mark, trade names, utility models, design registration, geographical indications and repression of unfair competition.

What is Paris Convention ?

It lays down three fundamental substantive provisions- National treatment ,right of priority and common rules . National Treatment:
The protection of intellectual property each contracting state must grant the same protections to the nationals of the other contracting states as it grants to its own nationals. Nationals of non contracting states are also protected by the convention if they are domiciled or have a real and effective industrial/commercial establishment in a contracting state

Right of Priority:

It provides a basis to an applicant for the filing of an application for protection of Industrial (intellectual) property, in any contracting state and then applying for the same protection in any of the other contracting state within a certain time period.
The later application will be regarded as if they had been filed on the same day of the first application. This is known as keeping a priority of the first application. e.g.in the case of patent and utility model the applicant may within 12 months apply for the patent in any contracting state base don his first application in a contracting state, keeping priority of his first application.

In the intervening period(12 months):


Applicant has freedom to exploit invention in any of the contracting states without fear of loosing novelty due to disclosure (i.e. this disclosure will not affect his patent application in the other contracting states even though the disclosure preceded the filing of patent application in their state.) If anyone files a patent application in any of the contracting states for the same invention after the priority of the invention remains with first applicants. Such right of the priority is of six months for industrial design and trademark application.

Common Rules: These rules should be followed by all contracting states in the administration & enforcement of IPR. e.g. in the case of patents, granting of patents by the contracting states for the same invention are independent of each other. Thus a patent granted in one contracting state need not to be granted in another contracting state. Similarly if a patent is reviewed in one of the contracting state,it will not have an effect in another contracting state.

The grant of patent may not be refused /invalidated on the ground that the cell of patented product or of a product obtained by means of patented process is subject to restriction or limitations resulting from the domestic law of that contracting state. Each of the contracting states takes legislative measures for grant of compulsory license to prevent the abuses which might result in the restrictive rights Conferred by a patent may do so only with certain limitations.

What is a compulsory license?


Compulsory licenses are licensees that are granted by a government to use patents, copyrighted works or other types of intellectual property. Compulsory licenses are an essential government instrument to intervene in the market and limit patent and other intellectual property rights in order to correct market failures. Compulsory licenses can be invoked if the government, in the case of a national emergency or otherwise feels reasonable requirements of the public with respect to the patented inventions have not been satisfied and the invention is not available for the public at an

These rules governing compulsory licenses are A compulsory license (not given by owner of a patent but by the public authority of the state concerned) based on a failure to work the patented invention, may only be given pursuant to request filed by a third party. Such a grant may only be made 3-4 yrs of failure to work or insufficient working of patented invention and a compulsory license must be refused if the patentee gives legitimate reasons to justify his inaction to work the invention.

Forfeiture of a patent may not be provided for except in cases where the grant of compulsory license would not have been sufficient to prevent the abuse.

Proceedings for forfeiture of a patent may be instituted ,but only after 2 yrs from the grant of the first compulsory license.

Paris Convention is not---a forum for the granting IPR . It also does not define

-e.g. what is patentable subject matter


-Any specific term or standards for substantive definitions for the rights. -Ways to interpret claims and enforcement. -Any limitation on compulsory license. It is considered as a pre requisite for any nation to gain from any of the major regional conventions, such as the PCT ,Budapest treaty etc.

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