Ms Bouch HKD
។
HKC 031/15
AUG 1993
FROM:
Jill Barrett
Assistant Legal Adviser K174 270 3381
DATE:
28 July 1993
HONG KONG: AMENDMENT TO TRADE MARKS ORDINANCE
1. You asked for advice on a letter from Hong Kong Government concerning proposed amendments to the Schedule to their Trade Marks Ordinance.
2.
The Trade Marks Ordinance implements the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property 1883, which applies to Hong Kong by virtue of the UK's ratification. The implementing legislation in the UK is the Trade marks Act 1938, the provisions of which apply to the countries specified in various Orders. It is therefore important that the countries specified in the Hong Kong Ordinance keep in step with those listed in the UK orders.
3. I have therefore consulted a legal adviser at the DTI (Kate Lee) to find out the latest position under the UK Act. I attach copies of the most recent two orders which amend the Schedule of countries to which the Trade Marks Act applies. Additions (a) to (e) proposed by Hong Kong all appear in the UK Orders. I can see no reason why Hong Kong should not make the same changes.
eg
4. The only question in my mind is how precisely the Ordinance should describe those countries. Their proposed names are not all consistent with the names as listed in the WIPO Notice; the Notice refers to "Slovakia" but HKG refer to "Slovak Republic". However the UK Orders have not followed the WIPO format exactly either, and in some cases give a fuller title (eg including "Republic of") than the WIPO list. It may be that the designation given in each country's notification to WIPO has been used. The main thing is that they should be consistent in the way they name countries. I suggest you forward copies of the attached Orders to HKG so that they can see how it has been done here.
5.
The addition of Moldova and Latvia looks in order, althought the DTI has not yet added them to the UK list. The Latvian accession will not enter into force until 7 september, but I assume that the Hong Kong legislation will not take effect until after that date. Again, there is the question whether they should be described as "Republic of" in each case, as the WIPO list will probably refer to them simply as "Moldova" and "Latvia". I have no preference either way, but they should make sure that they describe them consistently with the way the other countries are described.