General information

A priority right is a time-limited right to file an application for the same invention. Priority must be claimed in the patent application. In such case, information about priorities (called priority claim), should be put in the sequence as well.

Note: Priority Claim roughly corresponds to the fields <150> and <151> in the ST.25 standard.

Types of priority claim

There are three kinds of priority claim:

  1. national
  2. regional
  3. international

Priority can be claimed from one or more previously filed patent applications made in or for
- any state party to the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property (see http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/paris/index.html), and
- any member of the World Trade Organization.

BiSSAP supports all three. It also supports Unknown. This happens when a priority claim is imported into a sequence listing, but there is not enough information to assign it to one of the three main categories. In this case the priority claim is categorised as Unknown. You cannot create an Unknown priority claim from within BiSSAP.

Creating a new priority claim

  • Select the project in the browser. Expand it so that you can see the Priority Claims list. Right-click the list.

Select Create Priority Claim from the pop-up menu, then the appropriate type.

You can also right-click on any of the sublists to create a priority of that type.

  • The Create Priority Claim dialog is displayed. The required fields are marked with a red triangle.

  • The dialogs for national and international priority claims are almost the same, but BiSSAP will write the result differently to the database depending on the type of priority claim.
    • For regional applications, you can choose only regional institutions as the receiving office.

    • For international applications, you can choose both countries and institutions as the receiving office.

      The Application number field imposes the correct format, depending on the office.

    • It is advisable, but not mandatory, to enter the application number.

Note: You have to create the priority claims for each project separately because BiSSAP does not save previously used priority claims in a database.

Editing priority claims

To edit a priority claim, start the priority claim editor.

  • Select the project in the browser. Expand the tree so that you can see the entries below the Priority Claims list.
  • Right-click the priority claim. Select Edit Priority Claim from the pop-up menu.
  • The editor opens, with the priority claim data loaded. Modify the data as necessary.
  • The required fields are marked with a red triangle. All other fields are optional.
  • Save the data by pressing Crtl-S (Command-S, if you are working with Mac OS X).
  • You can close the editor without saving, in which case you will be asked to confirm that this is indeed your intention.

Browsing priority claims

You can see the priority claims for your project in the Project Browser. All priority claims are classified as national, regional, international or unknown.

Double-clicking any of these priorities opens a special editor in which you can view the content. This editor does not allow you to modify the priorities.

Deleting priority claims

To delete a priority claim:

  • Select the project in the browser. Expand the tree so that you can see the the entries below the Priority Claims list.

  • Right-click the priority claim you want to delete. Select Remove Priority Claim from the pop-up menu.
  • Answer yes to delete the priority claim, no to cancel.