The Paris Convention 1883: The Union It Creates

In one line

The Paris Convention creates a Union of States that agree to treat each other's nationals as their own in industrial property, and its first article defines industrial property much more widely than the name suggests.

In exam wording: the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property of 20 March 1883, last revised at Stockholm on 14 July 1967 and amended on 28 September 1979, constitutes the countries to which it applies into a Union for the protection of industrial property, Article 1 defining the objects of that protection and Articles 19 to 30 governing special agreements, ratification, accession, territories, denunciation, disputes and transitional matters.

Article 1: the Union and what it covers

Article 1(1): the countries to which this Convention applies constitute a Union for the protection of industrial property.

Article 1(2) is the definition, and it is wider than the phrase suggests. The protection of industrial property has as its object patents, utility models, industrial designs, trademarks, service marks, trade names, indications of source or appellations of origin, and the repression of unfair competition.

Two things in that list surprise students. Trade names are there, and they need no registration under Article 8. And the repression of unfair competition is there, which is why Article 10bis exists and why TRIPS Article 39 on trade secrets can be built on it.

Article 1(3) is the widening clause: industrial property shall be understood in the broadest sense, and shall apply not only to industry and commerce proper but likewise to agricultural and extractive industries and to all manufactured or natural products, for example wines, grain, tobacco leaf, fruit, cattle, minerals, mineral waters, beer, flowers and flour.

Article 1(4): patents include the various kinds of industrial patents recognised by the laws of the countries of the Union, such as patents of importation, patents of improvement, patents and certificates of addition.

Article 19: special agreements

Article 19: it is understood that the countries of the Union reserve the right to make separately between themselves special agreements for the protection of industrial property, in so far as these agreements do not contravene the provisions of this Convention.

This one sentence is the constitutional basis of most of Module II. The Madrid Agreement, the Madrid Protocol, the Hague Agreement, the Nice Agreement, the Patent Cooperation Treaty, the Budapest Treaty, the Trademark Law Treaty and the Patent Law Treaty are all special agreements within Article 19.

Berne has its own equivalent in Article 20, and it is the basis of the WIPO Copyright Treaty.

Articles 20 to 24: joining and territory

Article 20: ratification or accession by countries of the Union, and entry into force three months after notification, subject to declarations.