The Patents Act 1992, as originally enacted, gave priority rights to applications filed in Paris Convention countries (and those with which Ireland had bilateral arrangements).  These rights now extend to all WTO countries.

Many other minor amendments were required in order to give equal treatment to persons and companies from WTO countries which were not Paris Convention countries.  To give one example, there is an exemption for infringing products which temporarily enter Ireland as part of the fixed equipment of a ship or airplane. The law had confined this to cases where the country of registration of that ship or airplane was a Paris Convention member, but this now extends to all WTO countries. In short, the entire Patents Act has been checked carefully for such instances of unequal treatment and appropriate corrections have been made. 

One final and very far reaching set of amendments arising from the TRIPs Agreement, which are discussed in a separate section, is the provisions for compulsory licences.