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Short title.
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1. This Act may be cited as the Patents, Designs and Trade Marks (Neuchatel Agreement) Act.
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Power of Registrar to extend time limits.
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2.
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(1) The Registrar may, subject to such conditions, if any, as he thinks fit to impose, extend, until the 31st day of December, 1949, the time limited by or under the appropriate law for the doing of any act in respect of any trade mark or design or patent, being a trade mark or design which was a registered trade mark or a registered design on the 3rd day of September, 1939, or which became a registered trade mark or a registered design thereafter but prior to the 30th day of June, 1947, or, as the case may be, being a patent which was in force on the 3rd day of September, 1939, or which came into force thereafter but prior to the 30th day of June, 1947.
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(2) An extension under this section of the time for doing any act-
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(a) may, subject to the limitation of time specified in subsection (1), be for any period that the Registrar thinks fit notwithstanding that by or under any of the provisions of the appropriate law, power is conferred to extend the time for doing that act for a specified period only ; and
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(b) may be granted notwithstanding that that time expired before the appointed date or before any application or request for extension was made, or that, by reason of that act not having been done within that time the relevant application, patent, registration or proceeding has ceased or expired, or become void or invalid or been treated as abandoned.
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Extension of period of duration of patents, designs and trade marks.
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3. Notwithstanding anything in the appropriate law, for the purpose of the computation under that law of the period of duration of the registration of a trade mark or design or of the duration of the term of a patent, account shall not be taken and, account shall be deemed not to have been required or authorized to be taken at any time by or under that law, of the period or any part of the period commencing on the 3rd day of September, 1939, and ending on the 30th day of June, 1947.
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Certain powers not to be exercised before 30th June, 1949.
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4, The powers conferred by section 36 of the Trade Marks Ordinance and by section 25 of the Patents Ordinance shall not be exercised, prior to the 30th day of June, 1949, in relation to any trade mark which was a registered trade mark on the 3rd day of September, 1939, or, as the case may be, in relation to any patent which was in force on the 3rd day of September, 1939.
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Protection of persons who acted in good faith.
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5, In any case where, but for an extension of time granted under section 2 of this Act or but for the provisions of section 3 of this Act-
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(a) any trade mark or design would under the appropriate law have ceased on any date to be a registered trade mark or a registered design; or
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(b) any patent would under the appropriate law have ceased on any date to be in force,
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no person shall, by reason of any act, matter or thing done after that date but before the date of the commencement of this Act, be liable to any action, claim, demand or other liability whatsoever to which he would not have been liable if such trade mark or design had in fact ceased on that date to be a registered trade mark or a registered design or, as the case may be, if that patent had in fact ceased on that date to be in force.
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Interpretation.
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6. In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires-
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” appropriate law “-
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(a) in any context relating to patents, means the Patents Ordinance;
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(b) in any context relating to designs, means the Designs Ordinance ; and
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(c) in any context relating to trade marks, means the Trade Marks Ordinance ;
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” design” has the meaning assigned to it by the appropriate law ;
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” patent” has the meaning assigned to it by the appropriate law ;
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” Registrar ” –
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(a) in any context relating to trade marks, means the Registrar of Trade Marks under the appropriate law ;
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(b) in any context relating to designs, means the Registrar of Designs under the appropriate law ; and
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(c) in any context relating to patents, means the Registrar of Patents under the appropriate law;
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” registered design” means a design which is registered under the appropriate law ;
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” registered trade mark” has the meaning assigned to it by the appropriate law ;
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“trade mark” has the meaning assigned to it by the appropriate law.
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Schedules
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