CO885-8 — Page 124

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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :--

C.O. 885

8.

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

Queens land, New Zealand.

New South Wales, Tramania, Western Australia.

Victoria.

Canada,

land, South Australia, Cape Colony, Natal.

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The total expenses are limited by the Protocol of the 15th of April, 1891, to the sum of 60,000 francs a year.

By the Additional Act of the 14th of December, 1900, a new clause has been inserted in the Convention providing that :-

"The patents claimed in the different Contracting States by persons entitled to the benefit of the Convention shall be independent of the patents obtained for the same invention in other States whether adhering to the Union or not.

"This provision shall apply in the case of the accession of new States,

to patents existing in either State at the time of accession."

INTERNATIONAL ARRANGEMENTS IN THE SELF-Governing Colonies.

The only two Colonies that are already parties to the International Convention are Queensland and New Zealand. The Government of Western Australia has recently expressed a desire to join the Convention, while those of Natal and Newfoundland have expressed a contrary desire.

The Patent Laws of New South Wales, Tasmania, Western Australia (in common with those of Queensland and New Zealand, which have already entered the Union)"contain provisions on the same lines as those in section 103* of the British Act of 1883, which, when made applicable by Order in Council to any Colony which has joined the Union, give the priority conceded by Article IV. of the Convention to applicants from all countries belonging to the Union; and when made applicable to Colonies which have not joined the Union give similar rights of priority to applicants from such Colonies and the United Kingdom. Orders in Council have made the section applicable to Western Australia and Tasmania, neither of which has yet joined the Union.

The Patent Law of Victoria provides that, subject to the issue of Orders in Council, an applicant for a patent in the United Kingdom, any Australian Colony, or the Colonies of New Zealand or Fiji, may have six months' priority in Victoria. The Law in this Colony also gives 12 months' priority to a patentee abroad, provided that any publication of the invention in Victoria shall have been without the inventor's consent.

The Patent Laws of Canada, Newfoundland, South Australia, Cape Colony, Newfound and Natal contain no provision for International arrangements for the protection of inventions. The Canadian Patent Act, however, gives 12 months' priority to a patentee abroad, provided notice of intention to apply for a patent in Canada be given to the Commissioner within three months of the date of the foreign application. In the Newfoundland Consolidated Statutes (Second Series), chapter 109, section 18 implies that patents may be granted in England which shall extend to Newfoundland, but provides that they shall not be effective there until the arrival of the specification and drawings.

Natal.

The Patent Law of Natal provides that, from and after the promulgation in this Colony of the Order in Council referred to in section 104 of the Patents, Designs, and Trade Marks Act, 1883, all Letters Patent granted in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland shall be deemed and taken to be granted under the provision of Law No. 4, 1870, and may be dealt with accordingly; provided that this Law shall only apply to patents granted for inventions in the The effect of this United Kingdom, and not to designs or trade marks.

Some of the difficulties which would arise provision is not altogether clear. under it, if Natal were to join the Union, are commented on in a recent letter from the acting Attorney-General of Natal to the Colonial Secretary.

• This section has been amended by section 6 of the Act of 1885 and by the Act of 1901.

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APPENDIX XXIII.

Uniformity throughout the Empire of the Laws Relating to Merchant Shipping.

(a.)

MEMORANDUM.

The powers of Colonial Governments as regards Merchant Shipping legislation are

stated in section 735 of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1894, which is as follows:-

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to alter

735.-—(1.)_The legislature of any British possession may by any Act or Ordinance Power of confirmed by Her Majesty in Council, repeal, wholly or in part, any provisions of this Colonial

legislatures Act (other than those of the Third Part thereof, which relate to emigrant ships) relating to ships registered in that possession; but any such Act or Ordinance shail provisions

posses- not take effect until the approval of Her Majesty has been proclaimed in the sion, or until such time thereafter as may be fixed by the Act or Ordinance for the purpose.

(2.) Where any Act or Ordinance of the legislature of a British possession has repealed in whole or in part as respects that possession any provision of the Acts repealed by this Act, that Act or Ordinance shall have the same effect in relation to the corresponding provisions of this Act as it had in relation to the provision repealed by this Act."

As regards the general principles on which Colonial Merchant Shipping legislation should be based, the Solicitor to the Board of Trade, in a memorandum communicated to the Colonial Office in 1900,* said:-

"The Merchant Shipping Act of 1894, being an Imperial Act, cannot in my opinion be altered or varied by a Colonial Ordinance in regard to the duties and obligations by that Act imposed upon British ships and their owners and officers, except in the case of ships registered in the Colonial registry, and except so far as it may be necessary to legislate for local requirements, which however must not, it seems to me, clash with the provisions of the Merchaut Shipping Act, 1894 in cases already provided by that Act as regards British ships not registered in the Colonial registry.”

1. As regards the Registry of Ships the question of the desirability of uniformity does not arise, as Colonial vessels are registered under Part I. of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1894.

Part II. of the Act (Masters and Seamen) includes the provisions relating to certificates of officers. Section 92, requiring officers to hold certificates of competency only applies to vessels going to sea from the United Kingdom. Colonial laws on the Some colonies, such as subject are not in many cases uniform with the Imperial Act.

the Cape and Natal, have not dealt with the question at all. Others have adopted provisions of varying stringency. Thus, as pointed out in the letter from the Board of Trade to the Colonial Office of the 4th June 1902, a vessel under 100 tons may leave a Canadian with no certificated officers on board, but if it enters a Jamaican port it

port cannot sail again without a certificated master and one or more certificated mates.

Section 102 provides for the issue by Colonial authorities, under certain conditions, of certificates of competency of the same same value as those granted under the Merchant Shipping Act.

Section 261 states generally the application of Part II. of the Act to Colonial ships. It provides that→

"261. This part of this Act shall, unless the context or subject-matter requires a different application, apply to all sea-going British ships registered out of the United Kingdom, and to the owners, masters, and crews thereof as follows (that is to say) :-

(a.) The provisions relating to the shipping and discharge of seamen in the United Kingdom, and to volunteering into the navy, shall apply in every case;

(b.) The provisions relating to lists of the crew and to the property of deceased seamen and apprentices, shall apply where the crew are discharged, or the final port of destination of the ship is, in the United Kingdom; and Enclosure with Board's letter of 31st August 1900, on Hong Kòng Merchant Shipping Consolidation Ordinazos, 1899.

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of Act.