A decision by the Director. of the Bureau of Trade Marks, which in its application gives support to the contentions of the above article, was delivered on July 21, when registration of a trade mark was granted toa Chinese defendant company which, though identical with the trade mark of the French applicants, "only covered stone ink powder and ash manganese powder, and not chemicals in general, The. decision was Given to the defendants when the applicants admitted that their trade mark was not being used for these two particular chemicals at present.
'The applicants were the Etablissements Kuhlman, Paris, the defendants bei ig the Yung Chen Hong, the Chinese Hong, Honelon 'The' applicants, dissatisfied with the ded sion fo Protest Decision No, 416 of the Bureau of Trade Marks, Ministry of Industries, applied for Fe-examina-ton.
The decision, dismissing the application, was as follows:—
The defendant applied for registration of the "Cock Brand" (rade m: Used on stone ink powder and manganese powder in class Group, of Art. 37 of the Detailed Regulations relating to the enforcement of the Trade Mark Law, which Was examined. granted and' placed under approval No, 19931, Afterwards, the applicants raised protest to the Fegistration of the said trade-mark, alleging it to be an infringement of their rights to the "Cock Brand" trade mark, under No. 5508. This bureau duly decided "the applicants' protest does not hold" and sent a written decision No. 416 to the parties. The applicants were dissatisfied and applied to the Bureau. for re-examination, "Probability of Confusion"
The trade marks of the parties in the present case are one called "Cock Brand" and the other "Male Cock Brand," and their designs are both a cock in a circle. There is every probability of confusion, but, the merchandise on which the a plicants trade mark is used includes the whole group in class 1 of Art. 26 of the Old Detailed Regulations reiating to the enforcement of the Trade fork Law, without specifying the names, while the merchandise on which the defendant's trade mark is used is stone ink powder and. ash manganese powder' in Class 1, Chemicals Group, of Art. 37 of the Detailed Regulations relating to the enforcement of the Trade Mark Law {in force for the time being. It is a recedent-establishing question as to whether the applicants' trade mark used on these two merchandises. 'The applicant replied, on the order of this bureau, that their trade mark not being used on stone ink powder and ash manganese powder at present According to law, only' identical or similar trade' marie used on the same merchandise conflicts.
Now, the merchandise on. which the trade marks of the parties are used is not the same; of course, no Fight can be claimed, even though the names and designs of the trade marks are the same and may cause confusion, as there is fundamentally Ro conflict of interests, The application of the applicants is not. well rounded and should not hold. Therefore, it is decided as per decree. The applicants in this case may, if dis: satisfied, lodge an appeal with the Ministry of Industries within sixty Gays after service of the written decision.
Fundamental Change 'A fundamental change has now been made. From now on, no name oF hong name can be registered fa trademark. If it Is contained In trademark, no exclusive rights are acquired in respect of it; anyone may use it whereby the question of good of bad faith as provided for in the Trademark Law" is entirely over~ Jooked, a fact which only too clearly appears from protest decisions of the Bureau of Trademarks recently published.
This interpretation appears to be entirely unjustified by the wording of the low, which tends to allow Foistration even. of names vor firm. and hong names subject to the rights of third parties acting in good fait. "The matter is rather serious, for frm and hong names are of much more importance in China than anywhere cls, where fow buyers can read but understand the design of a combination of letters or characters. Trademark owners should rally to oppose such arbitrary interpretation of the Jaw and insist upon the former inter~ pretation being followed, which seems to be the only reasonable one.
'Another innovation Iles in the demand that every application for the registration of trademarks for foreign medicine should state the form (liquid, powder, pill, ete.) in which the medicine is sold.' The purpose of this demand is not quite clear. Is it, that the applicants should have analyzed their medicine in each form, it fs used, paying $28 for each analy: sis, of is there any other reason? No matter what the reason prompting such demand may be, the fact remains that the inclusion of the form, in which a medicine at present sold, in the trademark certificate would be—disastrous, for the Chinese Courts, who, for some reason or other, have recent-taken a much more lenient attitude towards trade mark infringers than before, would most probably acquit an accused, it he would be charged for selling pills, under the sume or similar trademarks of the complainant whose certificate protects him only for sale in liquid form, Value Practically Nit The value of such registration would be practically nil, A medicine manufacturer registers in the foreign medicines class and thus should have the option to manufacture and sell his medicine in any other form sooner or later. It is, indeed, high time that this further sub-division of the classes which are already much more subdivided than reasonable, should be discontinued at once, the more so as quite a few trademark a plicants or owners have recently received inquiries from the Burea of Trademarks if they are using their: trademark for certain goods belonging to the same class, which tends to show that further sub-division Is els to be extended to other classes. For
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.