Patents
12 CAP. 400] .
Convention
applications
8. (1) Subject to the provisions of section eleven, any person who
qualifies under Article 2 or 3 of the Convention and who has applied
for protection for an invention in a convention country or his legal
representative or assignee (if such assignee is also so qualified) shall
be entitled to a patent for his invention under this Act in priority to
other applicants if application therefor is made in terms of this Act
within twelve months after the effective date of the first application
for protection in the first convention country in which he made such
application or, where more than one such application for protection
has been made, from the effective date of the first such application,
and the patent shall have the same date as the effective date of the
application in such convention country but the term of the patent
shall run from the date on which the complete specification is lodged
at the Patent Office:
Provided that
(i) nothing in this subsection shall entitle the patentee
to .recover damages for infringements occurring
prior to the date on which his complete specifica
tion is advertised as having been accepted in
Zambia;
(ii) no patent granted on a convention application
lodged within twelve months after the date stated in
terms of section seven shall bear a date or be effec
tive from a date prior to the date so stated.
(2) Where, after the lodging of the first application in the first
convention country in respect of any invention, a subsequent appli
cation is lodged in that country in respect of the same invention, such
subsequent application shall be regarded as the first application in
that country in respect of that invention, if at the time of the lodging
thereof
(a) the previous application has been withdrawn, abandoned or
refused without having been open to public inspection; and
(b) no priority rights have been claimed by virtue of such pre
vious application; and
(c) no rights are outstanding in that convention country in con
nection with such previous application.
(3) An application which has been withdrawn, abandoned or
refused shall not, after the lodging of the subsequent application, be
capable of supporting a claim for priority rights under this section.
(4) Where all the rights of each of two or more applicants referred
to in subsection (1) who have made application for protection of
inventions in anyone or more convention countries have become
vested in the same person, those applications shall for the purposes
of subsection (4) of section thirteen be deemed to have been made by
the same applicant.
.