Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property

The Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, signed on 20 March 1883 and last revised at Stockholm in 1967, is the first and broadest of the multilateral industrial property treaties. Administered by WIPO, it brings together virtually every State and covers patents, utility models, designs, trade marks, trade names, indications of source and the repression of unfair competition. Its substantive provisions have been incorporated into the TRIPS Agreement, which requires members of the World Trade Organization to comply with them.

Founding principles

The Convention rests on two principles. National treatment requires each State of the Paris Union to grant nationals of the other States the same protection as its own nationals, without any condition of reciprocity, which rules out any discrimination based on the right holder’s nationality. The independence of rights, affirmed for patents and trade marks, means that the fate of a patent or trade mark in one country has no effect on the corresponding rights obtained elsewhere for the same invention or sign. The treaty creates no international right: it leaves national laws in place and coordinates them, a filing in each country remaining necessary.

The right of priority

The contribution most used in practice is the right of priority under Article 4. A person who has duly filed an application in one State of the Union has, for filing in the others, a period of twelve months for patents and utility models and six months for designs and trade marks. Filings made within that period are treated as if they had been made on the date of the first filing, so that events occurring in the interval, such as publication, exploitation or a third party’s filing, cannot be held against them. This mechanism underpins every international filing strategy.

Substantive rules on trade marks and competition

The Convention requires States to protect the well-known mark against filings and uses of identical or similar signs, even in the absence of registration, to refuse registration of State emblems and official signs, to accept the mark “as is” (telle quelle) duly registered in its country of origin, and to sanction filings made by an agent or representative without the proprietor’s consent. It also requires protection of trade names without filing and, in Article 10bis, effective protection against unfair competition, defined as any act of competition contrary to honest practices in industrial or commercial matters. Several of these provisions are sufficiently precise to be relied on directly before the French courts.

Key points

The Paris Convention guarantees businesses national treatment in every State of the Union, the independence of their rights and a right of priority of twelve months for patents and six months for trade marks and designs. It protects well-known marks and trade names without registration and provides the basis for the repression of unfair competition. After any first filing, the priority deadline should be entered in the diary and the list of extension countries settled within that period.

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This glossary entry is general in scope and does not constitute legal advice.

Dhenne Avocats litigates patent disputes before the Paris Judicial Court, the Paris Court of Appeal and the Unified Patent Court. When the question arises in a real case, the right moment is almost always before proceedings are issued.

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