The governments signatory hereto, being members of the Council of Europe,
Considering that the aim of the Council of Europe is to achieve greater unity between its
members for the purpose, among others,
of facilitating their economic and social progress
by agreements and common action in economic, social, cultural, scientific, legal
and
administrative matters;
Considering that it is in the general interest to simplify and unify as far as possible
the formalities prescribed by the various
national legislations in respect of applications
for patents;
Having regard to Article 15 of the International Convention for the Protection of
Industrial Property signed at Paris on 20th March
1883, revised at Brussels on 14th
December, 1900, at Washington on 2nd June 1911, at The Hague on 6th November 1925 and at
London
on 2nd June 1934,
Have agreed as follows:
Article 1
- An application for a patent in any Contracting State:
- may be required to accord with the provisions of Article 2 of this Convention;
- shall not be denied its date of filing on formal grounds if it complies with the
requirements specified in Article 3 of this
Convention;
- shall, if it otherwise complies with the law of that Contracting State, not be refused,
so long as the requirements specified
in Articles 4 to 6 of this Convention are satisfied.
- The Contracting States shall make no other formal requirements than those set out in
this Convention, but a Contracting State
may dispense with any of the requirements
contained herein.
Article 2
- The applicant for a patent may be required to submit:
- an application form; a Contracting State may, however, require this form in duplicate;
- a specification of the invention in duplicate; a Contracting State which makes use of a
system of examination for novelty may,
however, require this specification in triplicate;
- drawings necessary for the understanding of the specification, in duplicate, or, if the
law of the country in which the application
is made requires it, in triplicate;
- such samples as the law of the country in which the application is made requires;
- if an agent is employed, a document proving his authorisation to act as such, and, if
the law of the country in which application
is made requires it, his acceptance of the
authorisation; no legalisation or certification shall be necessary for this document;
- if the applicant is not himself the inventor according to the law of the country in
which the application is made, and if such
law requires it, a document proving his status,
such as assignee of the inventor, or the assent of the inventor to the making
of the
application by an assignee;
- the fees required for an application or proof that they have been paid.
- The application form and the accompanying documents shall be written in the language of,
or in a language recognised for the purpose
by, the country in which the application is
made. The specification filed in support of an application for a patent or certificate
of
addition may be required to be in the same language as the application for the main
patent.
Article 3
- An application shall not be denied its date of filing on formal grounds if the
application form, though it does not comply with
the requirements of Article 4, is filed
accompanied by:
- one copy of a specification of the invention in the language of, or in a language
recognised for the purpose by, the country
in which the application is made, even though
that specification does not comply with the requirements of Article 5;
- one copy of the drawings where necessary for the understanding of the specification,
even though those drawings do not comply
with the requirements of Article 6;
- the amount of the fees or proof that they have been paid.
- The law of the country in which application is made may fix time-limits within which the
other documents mentioned in Article
2 shall be filed or the documents already filed shall
be regularised.
- The Contracting States shall permit applications to be sent by post, provided that
nothing in this paragraph shall affect the
validity of any laws of any Contracting State
relating to the requirement of an agent or of an address for service.
Article 4
- The application form shall be regarded as formally in order, as regards its size and the
kind of paper used, if it is made on
strong white paper of a size of 29 to 34 cms by 20 to
22 cms.
- The application form shall be regarded as formally in order as regards its contents if
it is properly made on one of the standard
application forms annexed to this Convention,
or if it complies with the provisions of paragraph 2 of Article 2 and contains:
- the surname and first names (or in the case of a body corporate, the name), nationality,
domicile or registered office and complete
address of the applicant;
- the full name and address of the agent, if there is one;
- a short and precise title for the invention, without any fancy names;
- if the law of the country in which application is made requires it, a declaration
stating that the applicant is the true and
first inventor or the assignee thereof;
- a statement whether the applicant requires an independent patent, a patent of
importation, a patent for an improvement or a
patent or certificate of addition or whether
his application is a divisional application. There shall also be given the number
of the
patent, or of the application for the patent, to which the application for a patent for an
improvement, or for
a patent or certificate of addition or the divisional application
relates;
- if there are several applicants and no common agent, the name of the person to whom
official communications are to be addressed;
- the signature of the applicant or that of his agent, if, under the law of the country in
which the application is made, the
latter is empowered by the applicant to sign. If two
application forms are required, only one need be signed;
- if the law of the country in which application is made requires it, a list of the
documents accompanying the application as
set out in Article 2;
- an address for service in the country in which the application is made, if the
applicant's address is outside the country and
its law does not require that there be an
agent therein.
Article 5
The specification shall be regarded as formally in order if it complies with the
provisions of paragraph 2 of Article 2 and with
the following conditions:
- it is written on one side only of one or more sheets of strong white paper, 29 to 34 cms
long and 20 to 22 cms wide; the sheets
are connected together in such a way that they can
be separated and re-united without causing any difficulty to the reader;
and the pages are
numbered;
- it is handwritten, typed, lithographed or printed, and easily legible, the ink being
dark and indelible;
- a margin of about 3 or 4 cms is left on the left-hand side of each sheet as well as
spaces of about 8 cms at the head of the
first page and foot of the last;
- a space sufficient to permit the interlineation of corrections is left between the
lines;
- the specification does not contain drawings other than graphic chemical and mathematical
formulae;
- units of weights and measures are in accordance with the metric system, temperatures in
degrees centigrade, and density as specific
gravity: for electrical units the rules agreed
by international practice are observed and for chemical formulae the symbols,
atomic
weights and molecular formulae in general use in the country in which the application is
made are employed;
- the specification is reasonably free from erasures, alterations or over-writings, and
any which do occur in the originally filed
document are mentioned in the margin or recited
at the end of the description and initialled, and are made in the same manner
on all the
copies;
- the heading recites the surname and first names of the applicant (or in the case of a
body corporate, its name) and the title
of the invention;
- one or more copies of the specification is or are signed by the applicant or his agent,
according to the law of the country
in which the application is made.
Article 6
The drawings shall be regarded as formally in order if they comply with the following
conditions:
- one of the copies of the drawings is made on one or more sheets of strong, non-shiny,
flexible, transparent material. Not more
than two other copies, exact replicas of the
first, are supplied on strong, white, smooth, non-shiny paper; these copies may
be good
quality lithographs. If the copy on flexible, transparent material is made by means of a
printing press, the
other copies may be printed from the same block. Any Contracting State
may, however, require that one of these latter copies
shall bear no reference signs;
- each sheet is 29 to 34 cms long by 21 cms wide, or, exceptionally, 42 cms wide. With
sheets 21 cms wide, the surface used is
no more than 25.7 cms by 17 cms;
- all parts of the drawings are executed in durable, dark (if possible, black) markings
without colours or colour washes and lend
themselves to simple photographic reproduction
or to reproduction without any intermediary steps on a stereotype;
- sections are indicated by oblique hatching which does not impede the clear reading of
the reference signs and leading lines;
- the scale of the drawings is such that, depending on the degree of complexity of the
figure, a photographic reproduction with
a linear reduction in size to two-thirds allows
all the detail to be seen without difficulty; and, if the scale is shown on
the drawings,
it is drawn and not indicated in writing;
- the different figures are clearly separated one from another, arranged on as few sheets
as possible and numbered continuously
and independently of the number of sheets;
- all numbers, letters and reference lines appearing on the drawings are simple and clear,
the letters and numbers being at least
0.32 cms high; and each item depicted in the
figures, insofar as the understanding of the specification requires it, is denoted
by the
same reference letter or number throughout and these agree with those used in the
specification;
- the drawings do not contain explanatory matter, with the exception of such terms as
"water", "steam", "section
on AB", "open",
"shut", and, in the case of electric block schematic diagrams and flow sheet
diagrams, explanatory matter sufficient to enable them to be understood, when such terms
and explanatory matter appear in
the language of, or in a language recognised for the
purpose by, the country in which the application is filed;
- each sheet carries in the margin the name of the applicant, the total number of sheets
with the number of each sheet, and the
signature of the applicant or his agent;
- the drawings are filed in such a way as to be free from creases or cracks unfavourable
to photographic reproduction.
Article 7
- In each Contracting State any person desiring to take advantage, under the Convention of
Paris for the Protection of Industrial
Property, of the priority of a previous application
shall enjoy a period of at least two months, starting from the subsequent
application, to
make a declaration to this effect. Each Contracting State, however, reserves the right to
prescribe that
this declaration should be made within the priority period laid down by
that Convention.
- When a declaration of priority is made in accordance with paragraph 1 of this article,
the applicant may be required to submit
a certified copy of the specification and drawings
of the original application and such other documents as the law of the country
in which
the subsequent application is made may require.
- Insofar as the documents referred to in paragraph 2 of this article are drawn up in
English, French or German or accompanied by
an officially certified translation in one of
these languages, it shall not be necessary to provide a translation in the language
of, or
in a language recognised for the purpose by, the country in which application is made,
unless the competent authority
requires it.
Article 8
- This Convention shall be open to the signature of the members of the Council of Europe.
It shall be ratified. Instruments of ratification
shall be deposited with the Secretary
General of the Council of Europe.
- This Convention shall come into force on the first day of the month following the date
of deposit of the fourth instrument of
ratification.
- As regards any signatory ratifying subsequently, the Convention shall come into force on
the first day of the month following
the date of the deposit of its instrument of
ratification.
Article 9
- After it has come into force, this Convention shall be open to accession by all States
which are members of the International
Union for the Protection of Industrial Property.
- Accession shall be effected by the deposit of an instrument of accession with the
Secretary General of the Council of Europe,
which shall take effect on the first day of
the month following the date of deposit.
Article 10
The Secretary General of the Council of Europe shall notify to the members of the
Council, to any States which may have acceded
to this Convention and to the Director of
the International Bureau for the Protection of Industrial Property at Berne:
- the date of entry into force of this Convention and the names of any members of the
Council which ratify it;
- the deposit of any instruments of accession in accordance with Article 9;
- any notification received in accordance with Article 11.
Article 11
- This Convention shall remain in force for an unlimited time.
- Any Contracting State may denounce this Convention by giving one year's notice to this
effect to the Secretary General of the
Council of Europe.
In witness whereof the undersigned, being duly authorised thereto, have signed this
Convention.
Done at Paris, this 11th day of December 1953, in the English and French languages, both
texts being equally authoritative, in
a single copy, which shall remain in the archives of
the Council of Europe and of which the Secretary General shall send certified
copies to
each of the signatory and acceding governments and to the Director of the International
Bureau for the Protection
of Industrial Property at Berne.
