CO129-345 - Public Offices & Foreign Office - 1907 — Page 210

0.

34798

This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's hover

CHINA TRADE.

CONFIDENTIAL.

[29122]

No. 1.

207

OCT 07

[September 12.]

SECTION 4,

N

Foreign Office to Messrs. C. and E. Morton.

Foreign Office, September 12, 1907. Gentlemen,

I AM directed by Secretary Sir E. Grey to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 29th ultimo relative to the question of the protection of British trade-marks in Japan.

I am to state in reply that the case of the infringement of the label of Messrs. Buchanan and Co., whiskey distillers, to which you allude, has already been fully reported by His Majesty's Ambassador at Tokið, and is receiving careful attention.

Sir E. Grey is informed that Messrs. Buchanan are lodging an appeal to the Supreme Court at Tôkiê, and that the case must therefore be considered as still sub judice. It is not therfore proposed to trouble you for any information on the subject, as all the details are already in the possession of this Office.

His Majesty's Government are fully alive to the importance of the question of the protection of trade-marks in Japan, and they are at present in correspondence with Sir C. MacDonald on the subject of the measures required in Japan to meet any As you are aware, a Convention is in legitimate grievances at present existing. contemplation with Japan for the mutual protection of British and Japanese trade- marks in China, and the negotiations for the Conventions are at present proceeding with the Japanese Government.

As regards your inquiry as to the present position of the registration of trade- marks in China, I am to inform you that negotiations are still in progress with the Chinese Government for the conclusion of an Agreement on the subject, and it is hoped that provision will be made therein that no mark can be registered to which a prior British claim can equitably be proved.

I am to add that it cannot be too strongly emphasized that every mark likely to be used in the future, either in Japan or in China, should be registered at once at the Japanese Patent Office, failing which no action in a Japanese Court, whether in Japan or in China, is likely to be successful; and that, in cases where British unregistered marks have been pirated and registered by Japanese in Japan, steps should at once be taken with a view to, if possible, preventing the Japanese registration becoming final.

1

[2641 m-4]

I am, &c.

(Signed)

F. A. CAMPBELL.

:

!

Page 210Page 211