Claiming Priority

A right to priority for a period of 6 months may be claimed by an applicant who has already applied for registration of the same trade mark in a country party to the Paris ConventionThe filing date of the earlier application becomes the priority date of the new application.  The rights of such applicants take precedence over other applications filed during the priority period in respect of the same trade mark.

Where a trade mark application filed with the Intellectual Property Office of Ireland claims priority, the ‘priority document’ i.e. a certified copy of the original application as filed in the original country must be received not later than 3 months from the date of application.  This certified copy should be obtained from the office where this earlier application was made.

Similarly, applicants may claim priority in other states based on an earlier Irish application and in such cases applicants should obtain for this purpose a certified copy of the Irish trade mark application from the Intellectual Property Office of Ireland on payment of the prescribed fee.