Exhibition Priority

Was ever a more dangerous, less useful concept enshrined in IP law than exhibition priority? As OHIM's Presidential Communication 1/03 says "only a very small number of exhibitions, in particular world exhibitions, fall under this provision" - it is more often claimed incorrectly than correctly. A rare patent case, T 0382/07, looked at an exhibition priority claim in a European patent, which had been filed as an international application, and concluded that the European Patent Convention did not allow exhibition priority, even though the Paris Convention and the WIPO Patent Cooperation Treaty permitted it, and the applicant's country of origin (where the PCT was filed) provided it. That analysis (applicable law is that of the designated state not the state of origin) would seem also to apply to Hague Agreement international designs. Had this been a design case, OHIM would have accepted the priority claim in respect of the European designation, but the many national offices which do not have exhibition priority would not. The applicant's own disclosure would still, I guess, be protected via a grace period where there is no exhibition priority, but intervening third party disclosures (as occurred in this patent case) would be lethal. The take-home message: don't rely on "exhibition priority" outside the shores of Europe.