69133-1920-Supplementary-Bills-read-a-first-time--Trade-Marks — Page 1

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LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.

No. S. 150.-The following Bills. were read a first time at a meeting of the Council held on the 17th June, 1920:-----

A BILL

Short title and

construction.

Ordinance No. 40 of 1909.

Omission to send, and non-receipt of, notice of intended removal to

be no bar to

removal of

expired

trade mark.

Ordinance No. 11 of 1917.

Power to make regulations to give

effect to certain provisions

of the Treaty

of Versailles.

INTITULED

An Ordinance to amend the Trade Marks Ordi-

nance, 1909.

BE it enacted by the Governor of Hongkong, with the advice and consent of the Legislative Council thereof, as follows:--

1. This Ordinance may be cited as the Trade Marks Ordinance, 1920, and shall be read and construed as one with the Trade Marks Ordinance, 1909, herein- after called the principal Ordinance, and the said Ordi- nance and this Ordinance may be cited together as the Trade Marks Ordinances, 1909 and 1920.

2.--(1.) Notwithstanding anything contained in the principal Ordinance or in the Rules made thereunder, neither omission on the part of the Registrar to send the notice prescribed by section 30 of the said Ordinance, nor the non-receipt by the registered proprietor of any such notice, nor omission on the part of the Registrar to advertise the fact of non-payment of the renewal fee, shall be any bar to the removal from the register of any, trade mark the registration of which has expired and has not been renewed, and any such trade mark may be removed from the register upon or after the expiration of the period for which it was registered.

(2.) This section shall apply only to such trade marks as were vested in the Custodian of Enemy Property by virtue of the provisions of section 18 of the Alien Enemies (Winding up) Amendment Ordinance, 1917.

(3.) This section shall take effect as from and after the 4th day of August, 1914.

3. It shall be lawful for the Governor in Council to make any regulations whatsoever which he may think desirable for the purpose of giving effect to any of the provisions of the Treaty of Peace between the Allied and Associated Powers and Germany, signed at Versail- les on the 28th June, 1919, relating to trade marks.

Objects and Reasons.

1. The Trade Marks Ordinance, 1909, and the Rules made thereunder, require the Registrar of Trade Marks to notify the registered owner of every intended removal of a trade mark on the ground of non-payment of renewal fees and, if the renewal fee is not paid, to advertise the fact of non-payment. This has not been done generally in the case of German and Austro-Hungarian trade marks. It would have been futile to send such a notice to the former Hongkong address of the former German or Austro-Hungarian owner, and it is doubtful whether such a notice would have been a compliance with the Ordinance and Rules. Notices sent to registered addresses in Germany, or in what was formerly Austria- Hungary, might or might not have reached their desti- nations. All German and Austro-Hungarian trade marks registered in Hongkong were vested in the Cus- todian by Ordinance No. 11 of 1917, s 18. It would obviously have been useless to send to the Custodian a notice of intended removal of any of these marks. In view of these facts it is thought desirable to provide expressly that neither omission on the part of the Regis-

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