What is required to establish foreign priority?

To establish foreign priority, a U.S. application must be submitted within twelve months of the first foreign filing. This provision is rooted in the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, which allows a country to give a priority date to an applicant who has filed for protection in another member country.

When an applicant files their first application in a foreign country, they are granted a period of twelve months to file a corresponding application in the U.S. This twelve-month window allows the applicant to refine their application and seek protection in multiple jurisdictions, benefiting from the original filing date of the foreign application.

This method of claiming priority is crucial in patent law as it helps inventors secure their rights and prevents others from claiming the same invention after they have disclosed it in their initial filing. The other options either misrepresent the specifics of the process or introduce unnecessary criteria that are not part of the requirements for establishing foreign priority.