Let.TMOrd
AB
9 August 1993
Foreign & Commonwealth
Office
pal
10
CC Leung Esq
Trade and Industry Branch Government Secretariat
Lower Albert Road
Hong Kong
London SWIA 2AH
Telephone: 071-
HKC 031/15
LAUG 1993
Dear fer Leung,
AMENDMENT TO SCHEDULE TO THE TRADE MARKS ORDINANCE
1. Thank you for your letter of 7 July to Peter Ricketts, inviting our comments on amendments which you propose making to the Schedule to the Trade Marks Ordinance.
2. As the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property applies in Hong Kong by virtue of the UK's ratification, it is clearly desirable for the countries listed in the Schedule to the Hong Kong Trade Marks Ordinance to keep in step with UK legislation, namely Orders made under the Trade Marks Act 1938.
3. I enclose copies of the two most recent Orders which amend the Schedule of countries to which the the Trade Marks Act 1938 applies, together with a consolidated summary of the previous Orders. As you can see your proposed additions (a) to (e) all appear in the UK Orders and we therefore have no objection to them. The only question is precisely what nomenclature should be used to describe the countries concerned. We noticed that the names you have proposed are not all consistent with the WIPO Notice; eg the Notice refers to "Slovakia", but you refer to the "Slovak Republic". The UK Orders have not followed the WIPO format exactly either, and in some cases give a fuller title than the WIPO list. You may like to follow the UK format. If not, the main thing is to be consistent.
4.
Although the Department of Trade and Industry have not yet added Moldova and Latvia to the UK list, we have no objection to them being added to the Schedule to the Ordinance. However, the Latvian accession will not enter into force until 7 September, but we assume you are aware of this and that the Hong Kong legislation will not take effect until after that date. Again, there is the question of whether they should be described as "Republic of". The WIPO list will probably refer to them simply as "Moldova" and "Latvia". Our legal advisers have no preference either way,
1
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