Date of filing Classification Priority : The date of filing of an application is important because it gives the applicant precedence over later applications. It is the date on which all the documents containing everything required by the Act have been presented to the Registrar. If they are filed on different dates, the key date will be the one on which the last was filed.

doi:10.4324/9781843142928-113

Chapter

ABSTRACT

A ‘regular national filing’ means a filing which is adequate to establish the date on which the application was filed in that country, whatever may be the subsequent fate of the application.

(4) A subsequent application concerning the same subject as the first convention application, filed in the same convention country, shall be considered the first convention application (of which the filing date is the starting date of the period of priority), if at the time of the subsequent application:

(a) the previous application has been withdrawn, abandoned or refused, without having been laid open to public inspection and without leaving any rights outstanding; and

(b) it has not yet served as a basis for claiming a right of priority.