Samoa accedes to the Paris Convention
The Independent State of Samoa has deposited its instrument of accession to the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) announced.
The Paris Convention will enter into force in Samoa on September 21, 2013, when the country will become a member of the International Union for the Protection of Industrial Property, or the “Paris Union.”
One of the first WIPO-administered IP treaties, the convention provides that every contracting state must grant the same IP protection to nationals of other contracting states that it grants its own nationals.
It also provides for the right of priority for patents, marks and industrial designs, so that those who have applied for IP protection in one of the contracted states have either 12 months (for patents) or 6 months (for industrial designs and marks) to apply for protection in any of the other contracting states, and that these second applications will be regarded as being filed on the same day as the first application.
Samoa has been a WIPO member state since 1997, and joined the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works in 2006. It revised its IP legislation in 2011, which came into force on October 1, 2012.
