Paris Convention
The Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, is a multi-national treaty, established in 1883, and administered by WIPO.
The Paris Convention was driven by the need to achieve harmonisation for the protection of industrial property rights. The Convention sets global minimum standards for intellectual property protection.
The Paris Convention provides protection for patents, trademarks, industrial designs, service marks, trade names, geographical indications and against unfair competition.
The notable provisions of the Convention are article 4 (the right of priority), and article 6bis (the protection of well-known trade marks).
The right of priority
The right of priority affords any person who has filed an application for registration of a mark in one convention country, a right to claim priority in a subsequent application in another convention country for a six month period, from the date of filing of the first application. The effect of this is any convention application filed within the six month period has the same effective date as the earlier application.
The protection of well-known trade marks
The protection of well-known trade marks provision obliges member states to refuse or to cancel the registration and to prohibit the use of a trade mark which constitutes a reproduction, an imitation, or a translation, which is liable to create confusion, of a mark considered by the competent authority of the country of registration or use to be well known in that country as being the mark of a person entitled to the benefits of the Contention and used for identical or similar goods.
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