CO129-343 - Public Offices & Foreign Office - 1907 — Page 639

O [This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]

CHINA TRADE.

CONFIDENTIAL.

[March 30.]

[9184]

No. 1.

Sir Edward Grey to Mr. H. C. Lowther.

633

SECTION C

13823

19 APR 07

(No. 66.) Sir,

Foreign Office, March 30, 1907. I TRANSMIT to you a copy of a despatch from His Majesty's Minister at Peking, forwarding correspondence with Messrs. A. Rose and Company on the subject of the piracy for use in China of the "Crocodile" mark of Sir Elkanah Armitage and Sons, Limited, by a Japanese merchant in Osaka.*

A copy of a letter from the Board of Trade, who were consulted on the subject, is also inclosed.†

I concur in the Board's view that the case is one in which a representation setting out the facts might properly be made to the Japanese Government.

In accordance with the Board's suggestion, you should mention to the Japanese Government that if the present law in that country does not provide a remedy, it would be desirable for it to be amended so as to make it a criminal offence for any one to register a mark belonging to another for the purpose of blackmailing the true owner, and enabling any mark to be struck off the register by a competent Tribunal on its being proved to belong to another.

You should also point out that it is in the interests of the public no less than in that of honest traders that the Trade-mark Law in every country of the International Union for the Protection of Industrial Property should contain some provision which will enable the registration of trade-marks in the names of persons other than their true owners to be cancelled, on due cause being shown.

In this connection attention is invited to Sir C. MacDonald's despatch No. 44 of the 20th March, containing the reply of the Japanese Government dated the 1st March, 1906, to the representations made to them in accordance with the Foreign Office instructions of the 7th July and 2nd September, 1905, on the subject of the protection of industrial property.

I (Signed)

* Sir J. Jordan, No. 469, November 13, 1906.

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am, &c.

E. GREY.

+ Board of Trade, March 20, 1907.

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