[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
CHINA TRADE.
CONFIDENTIAL
No. 1.
470
[March 21.]
SECTION 1.
Ya Bulk Pug
Sir,
Board of Trade to Foreign Office. (Received March 21.)
Board of Trade, March 20, 1905.
I AM directed by the Board of Trade to refer to your letter of the 16th ultimo, transmitting a copy of a despatch from His Majesty's Minister at Peking on the subject of the establishment of a Patent Office in China, and in reply I am to forward herewith, for the information of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, a copy of a Memorandum by the Comptroller-General of Patents, and to say that the Board of Trade concur in Mr. Dalton's suggestions in the matter.
I am at the same time to inclose a print of the Hong Kong Patent Ordinance, 1892,* which is referred to by the Comptroller-General in his Memorandum.
I am, &c.
(Signed) T. W. P. BLOMEFIELD.
Inclosure in No. 1.
Memorandum by the Comptroller-General of Patents.
IT would certainly be desirable if His Majesty's Government could have such an arrangement with China as is contained in Article X of the United States' Treaty of the 8th October, 1903.
It would, I think, be ridiculous for China to have an elaborate patent law with search for novelty and so forth. What seems to be practically required is a simple registration law, enabling patentees who have taken ont patents in Great Britain, the United States, or any other country with which arrangements, such as are referred to in the foregoing paragraph, have been made to get registration of their patents in China readily on payment of the prescribed fees, The Hong Kong Ordinance of 1892 might, I suggest, form the basis of such a law, but it would, of course, require modification in points of detail, e.g., (1) it only provides for the grant of patents in respect of inventions patented in England, whereas the Chinese law would have to provide for the grant of patents in respect of inventions patented in the several countries with which the arrangements above referred to have been made; (2) in lieu of Article V of the Ordinance, which gives patentees the same rights and privileges as English patentees, specific provision would have to be made defining the rights and privileges which patentees would obtain from the Chinese Government, and prescribing the proceedings to be taken against infringers in the Chinese Courts, the fines and penalties to be inflicted on offenders, &c. As a patent is often granted for the same invention in several countries, it would probably be desirable to provide that the owner of the earliest of the patents granted in such a case should have priority over the others, at any rate in the case of concurrent applications.
(Signed) C. N. DALTON,
March 14, 1905.
• Not printed.
[1892 -1]
*
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.