TNAG-2890-FCO40-4162-Reform-and-localisation-of-the-Hong-Kong-Patent-System-1993 — Page 92

The Paris Convention

The priority system

3.25.

Because patents have only territorial effect, it is necessary to file patent applications in many countries to obtain comprehensive patent protection. The right of priority was developed to take into account the fact that an applicant cannot in practice apply for protection at the same date in different countries. He usually needs time to decide where he needs to file. Such a delay involves the danger that applications filed elsewhere after the date of the first application are no longer novel.

3.26.

To overcome these problems, the Paris Convention requires that parties to it must provide for priority within a set time period. The parties to the convention must allow applicants to apply for patents in more than one country at different times without the risk that the invention is no longer novel when it is filed somewhere else at a later date. Under the convention the applicant must file all of the required patent applications at any time within twelve months of the first filing. For more details on the convention see chapter 14.

3.27.

The United Kingdom is a party to the Paris Convention and applied the Convention to Hong Kong in 1977. Thus a Hong Kong applicant for a patent can claim priority for applications in other countries which are parties to the convention. The continued application of the convention to Hong Kong is covered by provisions in the Sino-British Joint Declaration relating to continued participation by Hong Kong in international agreements.

National treatment

3.28.

The Paris Convention also provides for a system of national treatment by requiring that each contracting state must grant the same protection to nationals of other contracting states as it grants to its own nationals.

Special type of patent- petty patent

3.29.

A petty patent is similar in concept to a patent in that it protects an invention. Petty patents are sometimes called utility models. There is no clear distinction between the two terms, but we have adopted the former. Petty patents, as compared to patents, may possess one or more of the following characteristics -

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1:

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(i)

a lower standard of inventiveness

(ii)

less strict criteria for assessing novelty e.g. national novelty rather than worldwide novelty;

certain products or processes may be excluded from protection;

(iii)

(iv)

grant is quicker and less expensive ;

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