International > Committee on Intellectual Co-operation

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Article 3. — The purpose of the present Convention is to protect discoveries, that is to say,
expositions and demonstrations of the existence, previously unknown, of laws, principles, bodies,
agents or properties of living beings or of matter, and inventions, that is to say, creations of the
mind (consisting of methods, appliances, products, the composition of products previously un¬
known, and, in general, all new applications of discoveries and inventions), the specifically scien¬
tific character of which deprives them of the protection granted to works of industry, art and
literature.
Article 4. — The duration of the protection granted by the present Convention shall consist
of the lifetime of the author and 50 years after his death.
Article 5. — The authors of the discoveries and inventions described in Articles 2 and 3 of
the present Convention may not put obstacles in the way of the industrial or commercial exploita¬
tion of the new applications of their discoveries and inventions, but they shall preserve authors
rights in respect of the economic adavantages of such exploitation.
Consequently, they shall have the right to exact a royalty on a scale to be determined by
agreement between the parties or in default thereof by the tribunal.
This right shall only accrue to authors if the industrial or commercial applications in question
are the result of their discoveries or inventions, and consequently not if their discoveries or inven¬
tions, only give a scientific demonstration of a result or of a process already known, that is to say,
already applied beforehand in industry or commerce.
Article 6. — Each of the Contracting States may classify a discovery or an invention as
being necessary to the public interest and may determine the conditions according to which the
right of the inventor shall be fixed. • • 1
This right of each State only extends to the discoveries and inventions of its nationals, except
in cases where the States adhering to the Union agree to extend the exercise of this right to all
the territories of the Union. ... *
The author cf a discovery or an invention shall be required to grant the requisite licenses lor
ensuring the necessary supply for public use, the different manufacturers or exploiters being
bound to reserve to him authors’ rights in accordance with Article 5 °f the present Convention.
Article 7. •— In order to establish his claim to these rights, the author of the discovery or the
invention must furnish proof that the discovery or invention in question has received sufficient
publicity.
Publication of the discovery or invention in the technical reviews, in acts of congresses or
in academic memoranda shall be deemed sufficient publicity.
Article 8. — The author of a discovery or invention may establish the object and the priority
of his discovery or of his invention by sending to the International Bureau at Berne a perforated
envelope of the “Soleau” type, according to the procedure established in I9I5 f°r industrial
models and designs. . .
Article 9. — The author of a discovery or invention may obtain recognition of his rights
by means of a "principle” patent, granted on the conditions laid down by the Conventions m
force concerning "application” patents.
The duration of the right derived from the grant of a “principle” patent (brevet de pnncifte)
shall be the same as that laid down in Article 4 of the present Convention.
Article 10. — The authors of therapeutical discoveries or inventions shall be entitled to the
benefits of the present Convention. >
Article 11. — On the expiration, from any cause whatsoever, of a patent the object of which
is to apply a scientific discovery or invention, the author of this invention and the holder of the
patent in question shall continue to possess a continuous right (droit de suite) in conformity with
the provisions of articles 4, 5 and 6 of the present Convention.
Article 12. — Questions concerning the priority of a discovery or an invention and questions
concerning the amount to be paid to the author when his discovery or invention is exploited
industrially, shall be settled by the Courts of the State concerned in cases in which such questions
arise between nationals of the same State.
These tribunals shall, so far as the internal legislation of each country permits, utilise the
services of experts belonging preferably to academic bodies and competent technical associations.
Article 13. — The subjects or citizens of each of the contracting States shall enjoy in all
other States of the Union rights similar to those which are granted, or may in the future be granted,
to the nationals of these States under their respective laws.
Article 14. -— Nevertheless, each of the parties shall have the right to resort to arbitration
by experts belonging preferably to academic bodies or competent technical associations.
Each of the parties shall appoint one or two arbitrators; the latter shall in turn appoint
a referee.
In cases in which the parties are nationals of different States, they shall appoint two arbitra¬
tors, one of whom shall be a national of some State other than their own. The referee must be
a national of a State other than the States of which the parties are nationals.
Article 15. — The seat of the Arbitration Tribunal shall, failing any agreement between the
parties to the contrary, be the seat of the United International Bureaux for Industrial, Literary
and Artistic Property at Berne.
The fees and allowances granted to arbitrators shall be the same as those granted to members
of the Committees of the League of Nations.
The Arbitration Tribunal shall decide who is to pay the costs of arbitration proceedings
and how such costs are to be allocated.
Article 16. — The arbitration procedure must be regulated in|accordance with the law of
the country within whose territory arbitration takes place. The contracting countries undertake