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Priority right.
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26.—(1) A person or his or her successor in title who has filed an application for registration of a design in, or in respect of, a Convention country or a member of the World Trade Organisation shall enjoy, for the purpose of registering the same design under this Act, a right of priority for the period of 6 months after the filing date of the first application, subject to compliance with any conditions as may be prescribed by the Minister.
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(2) Every filing referred to in subsection (1) that is equivalent to a regular national filing under the national law of the state, country, territory or area, where it was made (including the State), or under a bilateral or multilateral agreement to which the State and that state, country, territory or area is a party, shall be recognised as giving rise to a right of priority.
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(3) In this section “regular national filing” means any filing of an application for registration of a design in, or in respect of, a Convention country or a member of the World Trade Organisation that establishes the date on which the application was filed, whatever the outcome of the application may be.
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(4) An application for the registration of a design that was the subject of a previous application, and that is filed in or in respect of the same Convention country or member of the World Trade Organisation, shall be considered as the first application for the purpose of determining priority where, and only where, on the filing date of the subsequent application, the previous application has been withdrawn, abandoned or refused, without being open to public inspection and without leaving any rights outstanding, and has not served as a basis for claiming a right of priority.
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(5) Where the first filing has been made in a country, territory, state or area which is not a party to the Convention or is not a member of the World Trade Organisation, subsections (1) to (4) shall apply where the Government makes an order to that effect under this subsection consequent upon bilateral or multilateral agreements under which the State grants, on the basis of a first filing made in or for that country, territory, state or area and subject to conditions equivalent to those laid down in the Convention or in the Agreement establishing the World Trade Organisation, a right of priority having equivalent effect.
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(6) A right of priority arising as a result of an application under the Convention, the Agreement establishing the World Trade Organisation or under a bilateral or multilateral agreement referred to in subsection (5) may be assigned or otherwise transmitted, either with the application or independently and the reference in subsection (1) to the successor in title of the applicant shall be construed accordingly.
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