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2. Priority of applications

The statutory rights of the owner of a registered trade mark commence on the deemed date of registration.¹ The deemed date of registration is either the application date or, for applications which claim convention priority,² the date of the application in the convention country.

Under section 35 of the Act, the Commissioner must determine the order of priority of each trade mark application it receives and inform an applicant of any application(s) having priority over their application. Sections 35 of the Act ³ states:

The Commissioner must –

(a) inform each applicant whose application does not have priority over all other applications under section 34(1) or under section 36, or does not have equal priority under section 34(2), of the applicant’s order of priority; and

(b) determine, according to its order of priority, each application.

Therefore, where another application has priority, IPONZ will issue a Compliance Report setting out the details of the mark and raising it as a citation against the Applicant’s mark under section 25 of the Act.

Where an application does not claim convention priority under section 36 of the Act, the priority date is its New Zealand filing date.

For more information on the citation of trade marks, see the Practice Guidelines on Relative Grounds: Identical and Similar Marks.