Recently the Court of Appeal of The Hague handed down an important decision on the issue of the transfer of priority rights under the European Patent Convention ("EPC"), which is a first in the Netherlands. In its decision, the Court answered the fundamental question whether priority rights can be assigned in the affirmative and ruled that no formal requirements should be imposed on the transfer thereof. The case is extremely relevant for patents that claim priority from an application that is not filed in the name of the (subsequent) patentee.