The Bureau shall give in writing, or orally, its explanations to the Tribunal. ARTICLE 27. The decision of the Bureau relative to the refusal to register a Mark can only be contested before the Tribunal.

ART. 28. After having been duly registered the trade mark shall become the exclusive property of the one who has applied for its registration, provided that it is not contested before the proper court within one year after the date of its registration.

ART. 29. The right of ownership to a certain trade mark is established by the certificate of registration which the office of industrial property issues to those entitled to it according to article 18.

ART. 30. The right of ownership to a trade mark is connected with the business for which it has been registered. All rights to a trade mark become void as soon as such business is discontinued.

ART. 31. The right to the exclusive use of a trade mark derived from the right of ownership to said trade mark, refers only to the article for which it has been registered.

ART. 32. The right to the exclusive use of a trade mark extends for a term of 10 years.

At the expiration of this term, the registration can be renewed by periods of ten years.

In order to renew the registration a written application must be filed in the office within the last year.

ART. 33. Only the owner of a registered trade mark has the right to insert near its border the words "marque enregistrée" or the abbreviation "M. E." in small letters so as to prevent the trade mark itself from being concealed.

ARTICLE 34. The Marks of Products of establishments of the State are always considered as registered.

ART. 35. The right of ownership to a trade mark can be assigned, at the same time with the business to the goods of which it is applied as distinctive sign, if the respective parties agree mutually.

ART. 36. In order that such assignment may be valid against third parties it must be duly registered in the records of the office of industrial property.

ART. 37. All assignments shall be effected through the office of industrial property upon payment of a tax amounting to 30 francs gold. The assignment shall be exempt from said tax if the business is transferred together with the trade mark to the wife or the minors of the first owner of said trade mark.

ARTICLE 38. For each transfer made in the Register, the Bureau shall deliver to the assignee, the certificate referring to it.

ART. 39. The registration of a mark shall be canceled from the records of the office:

I". If the right of ownership to such trade mark is contested with success before a competent court (Art. 28).

2". If within three months after the date of an assignment the interested party has not notified the office accordingly and if the tax provided by art. 37 has not been paid.

3". If the registration of a trade mark is not renewed within three months before the expiration of each term of 10 years.

4". If the fact is established that the owner of a trade mark has ceased to use it for the purpose for which it has been registered, for a period of at least three years.

ARTICLE 40. The marks, whose registration is cancelled, are declared free.

ART. 41. Toward the end of the tenth year the office shall notify the owner of a trade mark of the fact that the term of registration is about to expire.

However the failure to notify the owner of a trade mark that the term for which the latter has been registered will soon expire, shall constitute no reason which might be offered as excuse for the non-renewal of the registration.

ARTICLE 42. A list of Marks cancelled, and of those that have been declared free in the course of the preceding month, will be published each month in the Bulletin with indication of the reasons.

(To be continued.)

United States.

Practice.

EX PARTE GRAHAM.

Decided October 3, 1904.

CONFLICTING ASSIGNMENTS-LEGAL TITLE FOLLOWED IN ISSUING PATENT.

Where two instruments are recorded in this Office purporting to convey the entire right in an application to different parties and only one of those instruments requests the issue of the patent to the assignee, Held that that assignee alone has the legal title and is entitled to receive the patent. ON PETITION.

SPRING MECHANISM FOR DRAFT-RIGGING FOr Cars.

Application of John H. Graham.

Messrs. Crosby & Gregory and Mr. James Hamilton for the applicant. ALLEN, Commissioner;

This is a petition by the Lever Suspension Brake Company that Letters Patent on this application be granted to it as assignee or that this application be withheld from issue until the courts shall have passed upon the validity of a conflicting assignment from Graham to the Graham Company.

It appears that Graham, the applicant in this case, assigned Patent No. 610,676 to the Lever Suspension Brake Company and further agreed to assign

any other improvements on brake mechanism on railway-cars or devices pertaining thereto which he might invent or acquire.

After entering into this contract he filed this application, which is alleged by the petitioner to be an improvement upon the invention covered by the patent previously referred to. Upon Graham's refusal to assign this application a suit in equity was brought February 12, 1903, against him for specific performance of the covenants of the contract he had entered into with the petitioning company. A consent decree was entered in this suit, and Graham then assigned this application to the Lever Suspension Brake Company and in the assignment requested that the patent be issued to this company. In the latter part of this same year, December, 1903, Graham was adjudged a bankrupt, and one Gray was appointed trustee of

his estate. On February 18, 1904, Gray, as trustee, assigned all right, title, and interest in this application to the petitioning company with a request that the patent be so issued. On May 3, 1904, Graham executed a disclaimer that

neither I nor any company in which I am directly or indirectly interested has any interest whatever

in this application. On the very day upon which he executed this disclaimer there was received for record in this Office an instrument purporting to assign to the Graham Company all right, title, and interest in this application. This instrument purported to have been executed on February 10, 1903. In this second instrument there is no request that the patent issue to the Graham Company.

It therefore appears that there are two instruments of record referring to this application, in only one of which, that to the Lever Suspension Brake Company, is a request that the patent issue to the assignee.

Chief Justice Taney in Gaynor v. Wilder (10 Howard, 477) held that an assignment containing a request that the patent issue to the assignee transferred the legal title to such assignee. The Court of Appeals of the State of Maryland in Harrison v. Morton (C. D. 96, 675), in referring to this decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, said:

It follows from what Chief Justice Taney says in Gaylor v. Wilder, supra, that prior to the issue of Letters Patent to the inventor he has an imperfect inchoate right to its exclusive use, which he may perfect and make absolute by taking the steps required by law, and especially by having Letters Patent issued to him; or he may by an assignment of this inchoate right, coupled with a request to issue letters to his assignee in compliance with Rule 26 of the Patent Office, transfer to such assignee a legal title to such invention. The legal title passes to the assignee under such an assignment, because he has under it, as the inventor had by law, the right to secure letters in his own name.

It was further held that an assignment without the request to issue the patent to the assignee conveys only an equitable title.

According to the records of this Office, therefore, the legal title of this application is in the Lever Suspension Brake Company, and whatever interest the Graham Company might have it is purely an equitable one.

Commissioner Duell in ex parte McTammany (93 O. G. 751) said:

Where two instruments are recorded in this Office both of which purport to assign the invention disclosed in an application and only one contains a request that the patent issue to the assignee, the Office under the authorities should recognize only the right to prosecute the case of that assignee to whom it is requested that the patent issue, and this to the exclusion of the other assignee.

In accordance with the established law the Lever Suspension Brake Company is entitled to prosecute this application to the exclusion of the Graham Company, and if a patent is granted thereon to have it issue to itself as assignee.

To the extent indicated the petition is granted.

Hong Kong.

Trade Marks.

ORDINANCE No. 18 OF 1898.

An Ordinance to amend the Law relating to the Registration of Trade Marks.

(L. S.)

WILSONE BLACK,

Officer Administering the Government.
(22d August, 1898).

Preamble.

Whereas, the persons entitled to the benefit and protection of the law in force in this Colony relating to fraudulent marks as applied to merchandise are, in many cases, resident in places situated at a distance from this Colony, and, by reason thereof, the proof of trade marks and of the right to the exclusive use thereof in legal proceedings under such law is attended with difficulty, delay, and expense; and whereas it is expedient to amend the law providing for the registration of trade marks in this Colony:

Be it enacted by the Governor of Hongkong, with the advice and consent of the Legislative Council thereof, as follows:

Short Title.

I. This Ordinance may be cited for all purposes as The Trade Marks Ordinance, 1898.

Register of Trade Marks.

2. There shall be kept a book or books in this Colony, to be called the Register of Trade Marks wherein shall be entered the names and addresses of proprietors of trade marks registered in this Colony, notifications of assignments, and of transmissions of trade marks, and such other matters as the Governor may, from time to time, prescribe. Such Register shall be kept as heretofore in the Office cf the Colonial Secretary, unless and until the Governor shall, by notification in the Government Gazette, appoint any other place for the keeping thereof.

The Register of Trade Marks kept under any enactment repealed by this Ordinance shall be deemed part of the Register kept under this Ordinance.

Trade Mark. Essential Particulars and Disclaimer.

3. (1) For the purposes of this Ordinance, a trade mark must consist of or contain at least one of the following essential particulars:—

(a.) A name of an individual or firm printed, impressed or woven in some particular and distinctive manner; or

(b.) A written signature or copy of a written signature of the individual or firm applying for registration thereof as a trade mark; or

(c.) A distinctive device, mark, brand, heading, label, or ticket; or

(d.) An invented word or invented words; or

(e.) A word or words having no reference to the character or quality of

the goods, and not being a geographical name.

(2) There may be added to any one or more of the essential particulars mentioned in this section, any letters, words or figures, or combination of letters, words or figures, or of any of them, but the applicant for registration of any such additional matter must state in his application the essential particulars of the trade

mark, and must disclaim in his application any right to the exclusive use of the added matter, and a copy of the statement and disclaimer shall be entered on the register.

(3) Provided as follows:

(i) A person need not under this section disclaim his own name or the foreign equivalent thereof, or his place of business, but no entry of any such name shall affect the right of any owner of the same name to use that name or the foreign equivalent thereof.

(i) Any special and distinctive word or words, letter, figure, or combination of letters or figures, or of letters and figures used as a trade mark before the thirteenth day of August one thousand eight hundred and seventy-five, may be registered as a trade mark under this Ordinance if it is already registered in England.

Application for Leave to Register Trade Mark.

4. Any person claiming the right to the exclusive use of any trade mark, either solely or jointly with others, may apply to the Governor for leave to register the same in the Register of Trade Marks.

Mode of Application.

5. Every such application shall be made to the Governor of the Colony in the Form A in the Schedule hereto, and shall be accompanied by a facsimile or specimen of the trade mark sought to be registered, and an additional specimen on a separate paper, and also by a statutory declaration, in the Form B in the Schedule hereto or an affidavit to the same effect: Provided always that such application shall not be granted unless notice by advertisement of such application having been made shall have been inserted by the applicant at least once a month in the Government Gazette and in one or more of the Hongkong daily newspapers for a period of at least three months before the granting thereof. Such advertisement shall be in the Form C in the Schedule hereto.

Governor May Order Registration and Filing of Documents.

6. Upon compliance with the formalities prescribed by this Ordinance and by any Rules thereunder, for the time being in force, including payment of the prescribed fees, it shall be lawful for the Governor, if he shall in his discretion think fit, to grant the application and to order the registration of the said trade mark in the Register of Trade Marks and the filing in connection therewith of all affidavits, statutory declarations, and such other documents as may be directed to be filed:

Provided that the Governor, unless satisfied that two or more parties are entitled to be registered as proprietors of the same Trade Mark, shall not register, in respect of the same goods or description of goods, a Trade Mark identical with one already on the Register or having such a resemblance to a Trade Mark already on the Register, with respect to such goods or description of goods, as to be calculated in his opinion to deceive.

Notice of Registration in Gazette.

7. Notice of the registration of a trade mark under this Ordinance shall be published by the Colonial Secretary in the Gazette, and the Register of Trade Marks shall be open to public inspection, at all reasonable times, on payment of such fee as may be fixed in manner hereinafter mentioned.