Paris Convention

The Paris Convention is an international agreement which helps creators ensure that their intellectual property is protected in other countries. It applies to IP in the widest sense as it covers patents, trade marks and industrial designs to name a few. The Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property was signed in Paris, France on 20 March 1883. It was one of the first intellectual property treaties. The substantive provisions of the Convention fall into three main categories: national treatment, priority right and common rules.

Priority Rights
The Convention priority right / Paris Convention priority right” provides that an applicant from one contracting State shall be able to use its first filing date as the effective filing date in another contracting State, provided that the applicant, or his successor in title, files a subsequent application within 6 months (designs and trademarks) or 12 months (patents and utility models) from the first filing.

Paris Convention Contracting Members in Africa:

• Algeria
• Angola
• Benin
• Botswana
• Burkina Faso
• Burundi
• Cameroon
• Central African Republic
• Chad
• Comoros
• Congo (Republic of)
• Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast)
• Democratic Republic of Congo
• Djibouti
• Egypt
• Equatorial Guinea
• Gabon
• Gambia
• Ghana
• Guinea
• Guinea Bissau
• Kenya
• Lesotho
• Liberia
• Libya
• Madagascar
• Malawi
• Mali
• Mauritania
• Mauritius
• Morocco
• Mozambique
• Nambia
• Niger
• Nigeria
• Rwanda
• Sao Tome e Principe
• Senegal
• Seychelles
• Sierra Leone
• South Africa
• Sudan
• Swaziland
• Tanzania
• Togo
• Tunisia
• Uganda
• Zambia
• Zanzibar
• Zimbabwe