File No. 406/260–261.
Chargé Jay to the Secretary of State.
Tokyo , September 8, 1908 .
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of the department’s instruction No. 186 of August 7,1 on the subject of trademarks and other forms of industrial property. I note with pleasure the statement that the department is disposed to agree with the embassy that the formal declaration by the foreign office, as contained in Count Hayashi’s note of June 30, 1908, taken with the other official statements that have been made, may be accepted in the sense [Page 535] of a full assurance of the intention of the Japanese Government, through a broad interpretation of the existing law, to rectify all wrongful registrations.
With reference to the latter part of the instruction under reply, it need scarcely be said that the embassy will at all times do everything in its power to impress upon Americans the importance of promptly availing themselves of the protection afforded by the new conventions and to answer fully and promptly any inquiries that may be addressed to it on the subject of the provisions ofe Japanese laws and regulations relating to matters of registration.
I may, however, be permitted to point out in this connection that, under the laws of Japan, an applicant for the registration of a patent, design, or trade-mark must, if he has no domicile in Japan, appoint a duly qualified agent resident in Japan, who must have been admitted to practice as a patent agent and entered on the register of the Japanese patent bureau in that capacity. (See Hall’s Manual of the Japanese Patent, Trade-Mark, and Design Law, pages 1–2, also Article VI of the Patent Law and Article XX of the Trade-Mark Law.) This agent must be furnished with full power of attorney authorizing him to represent his client in all proceedings before the patent bureau, both as regards the original application and as regards any matters that may arise after the registration has been effected. It might save several weeks of valuable time if this initial fact were pointed out to the intending applicants in America; and for that purpose a list of patent lawyers, taken from the Japan directory, is herewith inclosed, on which a few of the more prominent names have been underlined. The embassy will always be prepared to cooperate with such representatives to the extent of its power for the furtherance of American trade interests.
I trust that when the new conventions are printed the embassy may be furnished with a supply for distribution in answer to inquiries on the subject. The patent and trade-mark laws have already been published by the Japanese Government, and an official translation of the new legislation on the subject is in course of preparation. It is believed that the embassy can obtain as many as may be needed to send to Americans interested. A new manual also is in course of preparation by Mr. de Havilland, successor to Mr. W. Silver Hall, which will treat all matters in detail.
I have, etc.,
- Not printed.↩