Canadian Patent Law - Requesting An Earlier Filing Date

Requesting An Earlier Filing Date

To facilitate the international protection of inventions, by way of international treaties and the application of Canadian law, in some circumstances, priority may be requested in a subsequently filed patent application to an earlier filed foreign or domestic patent application by the same inventor for the same invention to provide an earlier "effective filing date" for the subsequently filed application.

For example, if a subsequently filed patent application is filed in Canada within 12 months of the earliest date on which any corresponding previously regularly filed application was filed in Canada, or in any country belonging to the Paris Convention, or in any World Trade Organization (WTO) member country, the subsequently filed patent application can request priority back to the date of filing the earlier filed foreign or domestic patent application, effectively, for the purposes of determining patentability of the invention in the subsequently filed patent application, giving the subsequently filed patent application the filing date of the earlier filed foreign or domestic patent application to the extent that the claimed subject matter of the subsequently filed patent application overlaps with the disclosed subject matter of the earlier filed foreign or domestic patent application.