ENG-1961 — Page 260

LAW, ORDER AND RECORDS

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years (14 if registered prior to 1st January 1955), but may be renewed indefinitely for further periods of 14 years.

In view of Hong Kong's importance both as a market and as a manufacturing centre, traders and manufacturers are very much alive to the advantages of having their trade marks registered, and during the year 1,790 applications for registration were received by the department, 1,184 applications (including many made in previous years) were allowed to proceed to advertisement, and 1,076 new marks were registered. The principal countries of origin of the registered marks (with the numbers registered in brackets) were Hong Kong (408), United States of America (168), United Kingdom (162), Japan (102), West Germany (80), Switzer- land (35) and China (8). The total number of trade marks on the Register on 31st December 1961 was 18,261.

There is no provision in the Laws of Hong Kong for the original grant of patents, but patents registered in the United Kingdom are registrable under the Registration of United Kingdom Patents Ordinance. This provides that the grantee of a United Kingdom patent may, within five years from the date of issue of the patent, apply to have it registered in Hong Kong, and registration confers the same rights as though the patent had been issued in the United Kingdom with an extension to Hong Kong. The number of patents registered during the year was 166, as compared with 102 in 1960.

Bankruptcies and Liquidations. During the year the Court made six Receiving Orders, two Orders for the administration in bankruptcy of the estates of deceased debtors, and three Orders for the compulsory winding up of companies. These cases, of course, represent only a small fraction of the number of business failures. As Chinese are in general reluctant to become involved with the authorities, few Chinese businessmen care to submit Debtors' Petitions, while Creditors' Petitions are kept down partly because creditors are disinclined to incur the fairly high legal costs incidental to a petition, and partly because the Court has power to dismiss a petition where it is not satisfied that the assets are sufficient to pay a 15% dividend to unsecured creditors. As for companies, business failures are usually followed by voluntary liquidations or the company is simply left to be struck off the register. During 1961 35 companies were dissolved in the former manner, and 31 in the latter.