Posts Tagged ‘IP Prosecution’

Priority – Article 4A of the Paris Convention

(1) Any person who has duly filed an application for a patent, or for the registration of a utility model, or of an industrial design, or of a trademark, in one of the countries of the Union, or his successor in title, shall enjoy, for the purpose of filing in the other countries, a right of priority during the periods hereinafter fixed.

(2) Any filing that is equivalent to a regular national filing under the domestic legislation of any country of the Union or under bilateral or multilateral treaties concluded between countries of the Union shall be recognized as giving rise to the right of priority.

On June 9, 2010, the UK Court of Appeal successfully avoided ruling on a 2009 decision by the England and Wales High Court (Patent Court) confirming the decision of the Board of Appeals of the EPO in case No. T 0788/05[1] which held that priority can only be claimed by the identical applicant(s) of the relevant earlier application or his valid successor in title[2].

The practice of Intellectual property law prosecution serves two purposes: [1] investigating and processing patent, trademark or copyright claims so as to establish or expand a client’s ownership rights to those claim(s), and [2] protecting clients from theft or infringement of the patent, trademark or copyright claims they already own. Structured to accommodate the world’s creative minds and technical geniuses, IP is the most comprehensive and complicated form of law practice in existence. Its success is based on deadlines and precision, the levels of which can directly affect businesses and the livelihoods they sustain… even entire economies.