Patents 12 CAP. 400] . Convention applications 8. (1) Subject to the provisions of section eleven, any person who qualifies under Article 2 or 3 of the Convention and who has applied for protection for an invention in a convention country or his legal representative or assignee (if such assignee is also so qualified) shall be entitled to a patent for his invention under this Act in priority to other applicants if application therefor is made in terms of this Act within twelve months after the effective date of the first application for protection in the first convention country in which he made such application or, where more than one such application for protection has been made, from the effective date of the first such application, and the patent shall have the same date as the effective date of the application in such convention country but the term of the patent shall run from the date on which the complete specification is lodged at the Patent Office: Provided that­ (i) nothing in this subsection shall entitle the patentee to .recover damages for infringements occurring prior to the date on which his complete specifica­ tion is advertised as having been accepted in Zambia; (ii) no patent granted on a convention application lodged within twelve months after the date stated in terms of section seven shall bear a date or be effec­ tive from a date prior to the date so stated. (2) Where, after the lodging of the first application in the first convention country in respect of any invention, a subsequent appli­ cation is lodged in that country in respect of the same invention, such subsequent application shall be regarded as the first application in that country in respect of that invention, if at the time of the lodging thereof­ (a) the previous application has been withdrawn, abandoned or refused without having been open to public inspection; and (b) no priority rights have been claimed by virtue of such pre­ vious application; and (c) no rights are outstanding in that convention country in con­ nection with such previous application. (3) An application which has been withdrawn, abandoned or refused shall not, after the lodging of the subsequent application, be capable of supporting a claim for priority rights under this section. (4) Where all the rights of each of two or more applicants referred to in subsection (1) who have made application for protection of inventions in anyone or more convention countries have become vested in the same person, those applications shall for the purposes of subsection (4) of section thirteen be deemed to have been made by the same applicant. .