Advertisement... Argentine Republic. Trade Marks. Patents. Courts. Procedure.... Section 7.... Colombia-Switzerland. Patents. Trade Marks, etc. Convention. Great Britain. Trade Marks. Decisions. "Orlwoola.". International Union. Conventions Adopted at Washington Conference. 3660 3644 3636 3632 3635 Law Regarding Compulsory Working. 3633 3640 3631 3655 Norway. Patents. Bringing Old Patents under New Law... 3631 Russia. Trade Marks. Publication. Modification of Law.. 3632 3632 South African Union. Patents. Trade Marks. Copyright.... 3631 3632 3653 3647 3656 3658 3655 THE Patent and Trade Mark Review A monthly journal for the publication of new laws and PUBLISHED BY WM. WALLACE WHITE, SUCCESsor to Attorney and Counsellor at Law, Volume 1, October, 1902, to September, 1903; Advertising rates on application. WHILE THE UTMOST CARE IS TAKEN TO INSURE ACCURACY IN THE MATTER THAT APPEARS IN THE REVIEW, NO RESPONSIBILITY IS ASSUMED ON ACCOUNT OF ERRORS OR INACCURACIES WHICH MAY OCCUR THEREIN. INTERNATIONAL UNION.-SO. AFRICAN UNION.-NORWAY. 3631 International Union. Conventions Adopted at Recent Washington Conference. In publishing the text of the Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property (See 9 P. & T. M. 3610) as revised and adopted by the International Union at the Washington Conference June 2, 1911, we find that the following paragraph was omitted: "The official language of the international Bureau shall be French." This item should be inserted as paragraph 5 under article 13. In addition to the foregoing Convention, two other Conventions were adopted by the Conference. While the United States is not a party to these, we mention them here in order to complete our record of the Conventions adopted at the Washington Conference. The first of these relates to the International Registration of Trade Marks and replaces the Arrangement signed at Madrid April 14, 1891, and the Additional Act signed at Brussels December 14, 1900. The second relates to the Repression of False Indications of Origin on Merchandise and replaces the Arrangement on this subject which was signed at Madrid April 14, 1891. South African Union. PATENTS.-Trade Marks. Copyright. Codification of Laws.. We are informed that the Governor General of the Union of South Africa has approved of the nomination of a Commission appointed to inquire into, and to revise, unify and codify the laws of the several Provinces relating to patents, designs, trade marks and copyright. The report, it is understood, will be used by the Government in framing new laws on these subjects which will probably be introduced at the next session of the Union Parliament, which convenes in January, 1912. The Commission consists of Lord de Villiers, Chief Justice of the South African Union; Sir James Rose-Innes, Justice of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of South Africa, and Mr. W. P. Schreiner, K. C. Norway. PATENTS.-Bringing Old Patents Under New Law. Attention is here called to the New Norwegian Law of July 2, 1910, and particularly to section 49, paragraph 2, which is operative only during the present year. This paragraph states that patents granted and applications filed before January 1, 1911, may be brought under the terms of the new law, provided a petition to that effect be filed with the Patent Office before January 1, 1912. The chief advantage of bringing a patent under the new law is to avoid obligatory working requirements. Although these requirements, under the old law, cannot be said to be extremely onerous, they are frequently found annoying, and in the event they are not fulfilled within three years from the date of the patent application, the patent becomes null and void. Under the terms of the new law the patent is not invalidated by non-working within three years from date of application, but is, instead, rendered subject to the compulsory license clause. Against this advantage there is the disadvantage that, under the new law, the taxes are, for the full term, approximately 71 per cent. higher than under the old law. 3632 NORWAY.-SIAM.—SWITZERLAND—COLOMBIA.—RUSSIA. Patent owners who are in a position to actually manufacture their invention in Norway, may well allow their patents to remain under the old law, but those who are not so placed, will do well to petition that the patent be made subject to the terms of the new law. Siam. PATENTS.-Trade Marks. Proposed Law. It will probably be three or four years before the civil code for Siam is completed. The section thereof dealing with commercial law will include a patent and trade mark law. Several European firms have already deposited certain trade marks with their corresponding Consular offices in order to secure priority rights for the future. Domestic firms having commercial interests in Siam are advised to act likewise. While such deposits do not grant any rights at the present time, it is believed that when a trade mark law is once passed, priority rights can be claimed and obtained against imitations made in the meanwhile.-Oesterreichisches Patent Blatt, August 15, 1911. Switzerland and Colombia have entered into a commercial agreement which contains a most favored nation clause, and which provides, among other matters, for reciprocal protection of patents, trade marks, labels, signs, names of premises or indications of origin, and also for the protection of works of science, literature and art, as stipulated by the laws of each country. This treaty came into force October 2, 1909, and will remain effective until the expiration of one year from the date that either party elects to terminate it.—La Propriété Industrielle, June, 1911. Russia. TRADE MARKS.-Publication. Modification of Law. Law regarding the modification of the style of publication, of the delivery and the forfeiture of certificates of trade mark registrations. * FEBRUARY, 1911. 1. Article 61 of the Industrial Regulation (Civil Code, Volume XI, Part 2, continuation of 1906) shall read as follows: "The delivery and the forfeiture of a certificate of registration of a trade mark (art. 161, cont. 1906) shall be published in the "Messenger of Finance, Industry, and Commerce." *The Russian Law of February 26, 1896, provides in Art. 14 (v. Recueil general II, p. 396) that publication must be made in the Messager des Finances of each certificate of a trade mark registration, and that this publication must be accompanied by a detailed description of the mark or of its design, if such is necessary to make the mark known to interested parties. Although the Russian Administration had ceased to enforce for a few years this esssential formality, a wholesale distiller in Bordeaux found himself non-suited in his action for infringement of his mark by the Senate, acting in place of the Supreme Court, upon the ground that the registration of his mark was considered void, because it did not contain the description required by law. In consequence of protests made against this decision, on the part of domestic depositors as well as foreigners, represented by the Union of Manufacturers, the Imperial Government promulgated the above printed laws, which has the object, with retroactive effect, of relieving the Government of the necessity to publish a description of registered mark in the journal in which it had to be published heretofore. 2. In modification and in addition to the laws regarding this matter, the following is decreed: The publication of the delivery and the forfeiture of certificates of registration of trade marks which have appeared in the Messenger before the publication of this decree, and which have been made upon the order of the Department of Commerce and Manufacture, and later on by the order of the Industrial Section, shall be considered as having full effect, even if they did not contain a description of the trade mark.-Translation from La Propriété Industrielle, June, 1911. Germany. The German Law Regarding Compulsory Working of Patents. This law (Law of June 6, 1911-See 9 P. & T. M. 3567) has been adopted in the form of the draft, proposed by the Government, except for the addition of a paragraph, under which the transfer of the patent to another becomes null and void, when the same is for the sole purpose of evading the revocation of the patent. On this point the representative of the Imperial Ministry of the Interior expressed himself in the Commission as follows: "This provision would apply only, in case a subject of a country against which the obligation to work in Germany remains effective, for instance, Great Britain, transfers the patent to a subject of a country in favor of which such obligation has been removed, for instance, to an American. Such transfer can be caused, from a purely economic and commercial standpoint, by one of the two following reasons: (a) The Englishman believes that for commercial reasons it is of advantage to him, to manufacture in England, to avoid manufacturing in Germany, which he is required to do in order to keep his patent alive, and to supply our market with English products. In such case, he would transfer the Patent to an American under the condition that the latter must abstain from importing into Germany the products of his factory. This being so, the assignee would hardly be willing to pay a suitable price, and such fact would be just as easy to prove, during court proceedings, as the fact that the merchandise is still being manufactured in England. This would be sufficient to prove the fictitious nature of the transaction. But such case requires as little as a fictitious transfer the adoption of a special law, the provisions of the general law being sufficient. (b) It is also possible that the Englishman transfers the patent to an American for a reasonable price, and such the latter would only pay, when he is allowed to manufacture the goods himself, by virtue of the acquisition of the patent. Then the Englishman loses his German patent, the manufacturing is transferred to America, and we are dealing with a serious business transaction, which can neither be objected to from a general standpoint nor upon the basis of the proposed provision. From the nature of general business such case will naturally be very rare. In fact, when a person has the serious intention to sell a German patent, he will naturally, for business reasons, first approach German firms, because they would generally be in the position to pay a better price than a foreigner. Another case, for instance, that the patent is transferred under the reserve that the assignor has the right to supply the German market concurrently with the assignee, can only happen in isolated and exceptional cases. In view of that, the practical importance of the provision is relatively small. It has nevertheless been introduced into the law, because the German Industry attaches great importance to the adoption of a provision, tending to make ineffective such transfers as have for their object the circumvention of the legal provision relating to the revocation of patents. This provision constitutes on the one hand a warning to those who intend to circumvent the law, and on the other hand a direction to the courts, who will have to adjudge such attempts." |