British "Chamber and China Ason.. Unitedly Opposed to Registration The British Chamber of Commerce Journal, issued on Thursday, say a joint meeting of the General. and 'Trademark Committees of the Shanghai 'Chamber and the Committee of the Ghina Association, held on the 8th instant to dis cuss' the trademark—situation, it was unanimously decided to continue the policy of non-registration, This decision was taken after a long discussion of the latest information from Peking and was conveyed to, members on the following morning, a cable to the same effect being: de patched to the Manchester Chamber. The meeting was unanimously of the opinion that our position will ultimately be far stronger if we base it on treaty rights than if we seek to improve it by registering in ac~ cordance with a law which has be officially rejected because it cor fiots with those rights, In the Diplomatic Body's last Note to the Chinese Government, it is clearly ted that whether marks are retered or not any complaints in regard to, trademark rights will have to be dealt with strictly in accordance with the existing treaty procedure. The meeting consider ed that much the best policy is to rely on this.
Fees for registering marks at the new Bureau are very heavy, some of them four times as high as those chargeable in the United Kingdom or Hongkong, while the adminis tration of the Bureau of at present constituted makes it more than doubtful whether registration will have any eventual value whatev As shown in the last issue, Bureau has accepted marks in contra vention of its own regulations and without regard to their similar rity"to other marks, Moreove the Diplomatic Body have ded that they do not recognize the new Chinese law and that marks are to be protected whether registered or not, nothing is to be gained by going' to all the trouble and expense of registering, If the fact of registration is not to be regarded an strengthening the position of marks that infringe British marks, it fol-Tows that the registration of Brit marks cannot strengthen their position as against marks that are non-British. For all these reasons mom-bers of this Association are advised not to register. mark owner must, of cours for himself whether to take this advice or not, It is, however, advice which has been very carefully considered, and the hope may be ¢xpressed that, in the general interest, it will be followed, the general interest being the ' preserve: of Treaty rights, which as was stated at the beginning of these paragraphs, will ultimately be very much stronger if we rely on them alone than if we act in accordance with a law which has been officially. rejected because it conflicts with them, Gen. Li Yuan-hung, the ex-President, in a statement made after his return to Tientsin from Japan, declared that he will never again enter into public life, and is determined to retire for good.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.