57
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
C.O.885
18 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
Thirteenth Day.
8 May 1907.
UNIFORMITY OF PATENT LAW»,
(Mr. Lloyd George.)
foreign patents. I should very much like to see that extended throughout the Empire, and that is why I think a resolution of this kind might be exceedingly useful.
Mr. DEAKIN: I quite agree with the resolution as you read it, and as I followed it.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: And it would be a very good work for the new Secretariat to take up.
Mr. DEAKIN: An excellent work.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: To try and collate these laws?
Mr. DEAKIN Yes.
Sir WILFRID LAURIER: Will you read your resolution?
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: "That greater uniformity of patent laws throughout the Empire is desirable so far as local circumstances permit."
Sir WILFRID LAURIER: With this qualification I have no objection. The subject is very complicated, and perhaps in no place more than Canada, where the patent laws are perhaps more developed than anywhere else.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: You have compulsory working.
Sir WILFRID LAURIER: I do not profess to understand it myself.
Sir JOSEPH WARD: In New Zealand we are submitting fresh legislation to the next Session of Parliament on this very important matter, and what we want to reserve the right to our people to do is, that while you may be suggesting uniformity of legislation, we will put legislation through on this basis. I think our Parliament will do it, and it will be supported by the Government. We absolutely object to the system that has up to now prevailed of an American, French or German patentee asking for the regis tration of his patent in our country, reserving to himself the right to manu- facture the article in America and keep our people in the position for the full limit of years, and a renewal at the end of the time, of paying the piper for the convenience of the people in America or Germany or France, or wherever else you like to name, and the product itself is never manufactured in our country at all. We pay for a typewriter, for a motor-car, or for something connected with a plough, an exorbitant price to enable a person who has sold his patent to somebody else at an exorbitant price, to bleed our people to death. We are not going to allow it.
Mr. DEAKIN: We have a provision aimed at that.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I have a provision with the same object in a Bill I am promoting now.
Sir JOSEPH WARD: We want to insist on the registration of a patent within a reasonable time, and unless it is brought into practical working in
our country, and the man himself may erect a factory in our country and do so, our people will do it for him. If that is provided for in your Bill it will be endorsed by the people in our country.
Thirteenth Day. 8 May 1907.
UNIFORMITY OF PATENT LAWS. (Sir
Sir WILLIAM ROBSON : To obtain uniformity of law would involve extraordinary difficulty. Take Canada, Canada has a search for novelty, and Joseph Ward.) so has the United States, and the United States lays great stress on the value of that provision, but that provision does not exist everywhere, and Canadians might very well object that patents granted with less severity of investigation should nevertheless run current throughout Canada, as if they were granted to Canadians. Each Colony will want to think a great deal about this subject.
Sir WILFRID LAURIER: It is a most complicated subject, Sir Joseph Ward. There will be no objection to our meeting our local circumstances; that is quite consistent with the desire to obtain uniformity of legislation.
Mr. DEAKIN: We want a general policy and a resolution in that direction.
Sir WILFRID LAURIER: The resolution of Mr. Lloyd George, with the qualification at the end, is not objectionable.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: That is substantially the Cape resolution, it is pointed out to me. I had not seen the Cape resolution at all, but with reference to the word "Imperial legislation," that would be impossible, as we could not legislate for Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. It might be put in this way:
"That it is desirable that His Majesty's Government, after full "consultation with the Colonies, should endeavour to provide such uniformity
as may be practicable."
Dr. SMARTT: “Uniformity of laws as far as possible."
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: That is substantially the Cape resolution, except the first part of it.
Dr. SMARTT: I see your difficulty as to the first part, but we can easily meet it. What we had in view in framing this resolution was that we wanted, as far as possible, as another example of unity, to have our patent laws and our trade statistics, and our company laws, and everything of that sort, formed upon the same basis, and we look to the Imperial Govern- ment in their Act to advise us as to the best mode of procedure to bring about that as far as possible.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I think your resolution admirably meets it.
Dr. SMARTT: I think Mr. Lloyd George will specially agree with me that it is most inadvisable, even in regard to our company laws, that you should have one law in England and a different law in all the various British Colonies, who are anxious to have them all on the same basis.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I think it is trade marks and not merchandise marke
you have in your mind.
Dr. SMARTT: Yes, "trade marks
it ought to be instead of "mer-
i 19270.
P
chandise marks."