1.3 Validly claiming priority 

For a valid claim to priority, the following conditions must be satisfied:

(i)the previous application was filed in or for a state or WTO member recognised as giving rise to a priority right in accordance with the provisions of the EPC (see also A‑III, 6.2);

(ii)the applicant for the European patent was the applicant, or is the successor in title to the applicant, who made the previous application (see also A‑III, 6.1 and, for transfer of partial priority, F‑VI, 1.5);

(iii)the European application is made during a period of twelve months from the date of filing of the previous application (subject to certain exceptions, see A‑III, 6.6); and

(iv)the European application is in respect of the same invention as the invention disclosed in the previous application, which must be the "first application" (see F‑VI, 1.4 and F-VI, 1.4.1).

The words "in or for" any member state of the Paris Convention or member of the WTO, referred to in A‑III, 6.2, mean that priority may be claimed in respect of a previous national application, a previous European application, a previous application filed under another regional patent treaty or a previous PCT application. If the previous application was filed in or for an EPC contracting state, this state may also be designated in the European application. The previous application may be for a patent or for the registration of a utility model or for a utility certificate. However, a priority right based on the deposit of an industrial design is not recognised (see J 15/80). So long as the contents of the application were sufficient to establish a filing date, it can be used to create a priority date, no matter what the outcome of the application may be; for example, it may subsequently be abandoned or refused (see A‑III, 6.2).

The expression "the same invention" in Art. 87(1) means that the subject-matter of a claim in a European application may enjoy the priority of a previous application only if the skilled person can derive the subject-matter of the claim directly and unambiguously, using common general knowledge, from the previous application as a whole. This means that the specific combination of features present in the claim must at least implicitly be disclosed in the previous application (see F‑VI, 2.2 and G 2/98).