Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property

The Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property (known as the Paris Convention or Paris Convention), signed in 1883 and entered into force on July 7, 1884, is an international treaty applicable to industrial property in its broadest sense, since it includes inventions, trademarks, industrial designs, practical use models, trade names, geographical names and the repression of unfair competition.

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), based in Geneva, administers the Convention. All States may accede to the Convention by depositing their instruments of ratification or accession to the Director General of WIPO. It has 177 States Parties as of October 1, 2020.

Provisions

The substantive provisions of the convention fall into three main categories: national treatment, right of priority, and common rules.

Under the provisions of national treatment, the convention establishes that, in relation to industrial property, each of the states that participate in a contract must grant to the citizens of the other contracting states the same protection that it grants to its nationals. Citizens of non-contracting states will also be protected by the convention if they are domiciled or have a real and effective industrial or commercial establishment in one of the contracting states.

This convention provides for the right of priority in the case of patents (and practical models, if any), trademarks and industrial designs. This right means that, based on a first regular application filed in one of the contracting states, the applicant may request protection in any of the other contracting states, within a certain period; then, those last applications will be considered as if they had been presented on the same day as the first application.

The convention sets out a few common rules that all contracting states must apply. Some of them are the following.

Patents

Patents granted in different contracting states for the same invention are independent of each other; the grant of a patent in one contracting state does not obligate the other contracting states to grant a patent.

The inventor has the right to be recognized as such in the patent.

Brands

The convention does not regulate the conditions for the presentation and registration of trademarks, for which they must be determined according to the national law of each contracting state.

When a trademark has been duly registered in the country of origin, it must, upon request, be accepted for registration and protected in its original form in the other contracting states. However, registration can be denied in well-defined cases.

If in any contracting state the use of a trademark is required, the registration may be canceled for non-use only after a reasonable period and only if the owner fails to justify his inactivity.

Protection should be granted to collective marks.

A classification of products and services is established for the purpose of registering trademarks. This system groups all products and services into 45 classes – 34 for products, 11 for services – allowing the user to specify precisely and clearly the classes that cover his brand. In this way, when a person files a trademark registration application in any of the contracting countries, he can use the same classification system, making the process faster and easier for the applicant.

Industrial designs must be protected in each of the contracting states, and the protection may not be invalidated by the fact that the articles into which the design is incorporated are not manufactured in that state.

Protection must be granted to trade names in each of the contracting states, without any obligation to present documentation or register them.

Each of the contracting states shall take measures against the direct or indirect use of a false indication as to the source of the goods or the identity of the producer, manufacturer or distributor.

Each contracting state shall be obliged to provide effective protection against unfair competition.

Contracting Countries of the Paris Convention

The convention has 179 contracting member countries, making it one of the most widely adopted treaties in the world.

See full list on English Wikipedia: List of parties to the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property

Member States of the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property

Administration

The Paris Convention is administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), based in Geneva, Switzerland.

Related Treatises

• Arrangement of Madrid (1891) on trademarks
• Patent Cooperation Treaty (1970)
• Lisbon Agreement on Denominations of Origin (1958) and Geneva Act on Geographical Indications (2015)

See also

World Intellectual Property Organization