ENG-1997 — Page 160

TRADE AND INDUSTRY

department continued its review of the law on trade marks and a draft Trade Marks Bill was put forward for consultation. The new Patents and Registered Designs Ordinances came into force on June 27, 1997, to localise registration systems which were previously dependant on United Kingdom legislation. Independent registration systems for patents and designs have been established in Hong Kong for the first time. A new Copyright Ordinance was also enacted and came into effect on June 27, 1997.

Trade Marks

The Trade Marks Registry is a registry of original registration. Trade Marks are registered in respect of both goods and services under the Trade Marks Ordinance. The procedure in applying for registration is laid down in the Trade Marks Rules. Every mark must satisfy the requirements of the Trade Marks Ordinance before it may be accepted for registration in Hong Kong. During 1997, 18 529 applications were received, 14 830 of which were in respect of goods and 3 699 in respect of services. In all, 12 680 marks were registered in 1997, an increase of 8 per cent compared with 11.720 in 1996. The principal places of applicants' origin were:

Hong Kong

2 514

USA

2 975

Germany

Switzerland

714

618

Japan

1 225

Italy

408

France

UK

783

658

British Virgin Islands

Netherlands

308

264

108

The register had a total of 99 112 marks as at December 31, 1997.

Patents

The new Patents Ordinance provides for the grant of standard patents based on patents granted in the Chinese Patent Office, the UK Patent Office or the European Patent Office designating the UK. It also provides for the grant of short-term patents. In all, 1340 patents were registered during the year under the later-repealed Registration of Patents Ordinance. The Patents Registry received 842 requests for registration and grant of standard patents under the new Patents Ordinance and 147 were granted. There were also 30 applications for grant of short-term patents, none of which had been granted by December 31.

Registered Designs

The new registered designs law enables designs to be registered independently in Hong Kong. The Designs Registry has received 683 applications for registration of 960 designs, comprising 590 single-design applications and 93 multiple-design applications. During the period, 170 designs were registered.

Copyright

The copyright regime in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region is in line with prevailing international standards and norms. Hong Kong protects literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works, published editions, sound recordings, films, broadcasts, cable programmes, and performers' performances. Under the new Copyright Ordinance, the economic right of copyright owners and performers has been