Section 44: International arrangements.

(1) Any person who has applied for protection for any trade mark in a Convention country, or his legal representative or assignee, shall be entitled to registration of his trade mark under this Act in priority to other applicants; and the registration shall have the same date as the date of the application in the Convention country:
Provided that-
(a) this subsection shall not apply unless application for registration is made within six months from the application for protection in the Convention country; and
(b) nothing in this section shall entitle the proprietor of the trademark to recover damages for infringements happening prior to the actual date on which his trademark is registered in Nigeria.
(2) The registration of a trade mark shall not be invalidated by reason only of the use of the trade mark in Nigeria during the period specified in this section as that within which the application may be made.
(3) The application for the registration of a trade mark by virtue of this section must be made in the same manner as an ordinary application for the registration of a trade mark under this Act.
(4) Where a person has applied for protection for any trade mark by an application which-
(a) in accordance with the terms of a treaty subsisting between any two or more Convention countries, is equivalent to an application duly made in any one of those Convention countries; or
(b) in accordance with the law of any Convention country, is equivalent to an application duly made in that Convention country,
he shall be deemed for the purposes of this section to have applied in that Convention country.
(5) In this Act, "Convention country" means a country in the case of which there is for the time being in force a declaration made by the President, with a view to the fulfilment of a treaty, convention, arrangement or engagement, declaring that that country is a Convention country:
Provided that a declaration may be made as aforesaid for the purposes either of all or of some (but not all) of the provisions of this Act, and a country in the case of which a declaration made for the purposes of some (but not all) of the provisions of this Act is in force shall be deemed to be a Convention country for the purposes of those provisions only.
(6) A declaration made under this section shall not have effect until published in the Federal Gazette.