Trade Marks Ordinance, 2001 — section 25

25. Meaning of Convention application, and right to priority..—_(1) A “Convention application” means an application duly made by a person for registration of a trade mark in one or more than one Convention country.

(2)If

(a)a person has duly made a “Convention application”; and

(b)within six months from the date on which the Convention application or first of the Convention applications was made, that person or another person hereinafter referred to as the “successor in title” of whom that person is a predecessor in title applies to the Registrar in the prescribed manner for the registration of the same trade mark under this Ordinance in respect of some or all of the same goods or services or both in respect of which registration was sought in that convention country or those Convention countries, that person or that person’s successor in title may, when filing the application under this Ordinance, or within the prescribed period after filing the application under this Ordinance, but before the application is accepted, has a right to priority for the registration of the trade mark.

(3)If the application for registration under this Ordinance is made within the prescribed priority period mentioned in sub-section (2)

(a)the relevant date for the purposes of establishing which rights take precedence shall be the date of filing of the first Convention application; and

(b)the registrability of the trade mark shall not be affected by any use of the mark in Pakistan in the period between that date and the date of the application under this Ordinance.

(4)Any filing which in a Convention country is equivalent to a regular national filing, under its domestic legislation or an international agreement, shall be treated as giving rise to the right of priority. Explanation. ___For the purposes of this sub-section, 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.

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(a)the previous application has been withdrawn, abandoned or refused, without having been laid open to public inspection and without leaving any rights outstanding; and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

(6)The previous application referred to in sub-section (5), may not thereafter serve as a basis for claiming a right of priority.

(7)The manner of claiming a right to priority on the basis of a Convention application shall be such as may be prescribed.

(8)A right to priority arising as a result of a Convention application may be assigned or otherwise transmitted, either with the application or independently.

(9)The reference in sub-section (2) to the applicants “successor in title” shall be construed accordingly.