INTERNATIONAL PATENTS The International Convention for the protection of industrial property, covering patent rights, was signed at Paris on March 20, 1883 ; the necessary ratifications were exchanged on June 6, 1884, and the Convention came into force a month later. The Convention has since been revised at Brussels on Dec. 14, 1900, at Washington on June 2, 1911, and at The Hague on Nov. 6, 1925. The principal points of the Convention in respect of patents are the right of priority given to an applicant in one country of the Union during the period of 12 months for making applications in other countries of the Union, and the provision giving a period of three years from application within which revocation for non-working is not to be made. Article 5, in its present form, provides that the importation by the patentee into the country where the patent has been granted of articles manu factured in any of the countries of the Union shall not entail revocation of the patent. Nevertheless each of the contracting countries shall have the right to take the necessary legislative measures to prevent the abuses which might result from the exer cise of the exclusive rights conferred by the patent, for example, failure to work. These measures shall not provide for the revoca tion of the patent unless the grant of compulsory licences is in sufficient to prevent such abuses. In no case shall the patent be liable to such measures before the expiration of at least three years from the date of the grant of the patent, and then only if the patentee is unable to justify himself by legitimate reasons. Provision was made by ss. 103 and 104 of the Patents Act 1883 for carrying out the Convention in Great Britain by Orders in Council, applying it from time to time to (a) British possessions whose legislatures had made satisfactory arrangements for the protection of inventions patented in Great Britain; (b) foreign States with which the sovereign had made arrangements for the mutual protection of inventions. The Act of 1907 contains similar
provisions (s. 91, as amended by the Act of 1919). The Patents and Designs (Convention) Act, 1928, was passed to give effect to the revised Convention of 1925. In addition to Great Brit ain, Australia, Canada, Ceylon, New Zealand, Trinidad and To bago, the following are now parties to the International Conven tion : Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Danzig, Dominican Republic, Denmark, Esthonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Irish Free State, Italy, Japan, Yugo slavia, Latvia, Luxembourg, Mexico, Morocco (part under French protection), Netherlands and Dutch East Indies, Norway, Poland, Portugal (with Azores and Madeira), Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria and Lebanon, Tunis, Turkey and the United States.
An international bureau in connection with the Convention is established at Berne, where an official monthly periodical, La Pro priete industrielle, is published. (F. G. U.) Other Countries.—For full information on this subject see Patent Laws of the World (1911-12). See also: Belgium, P. van der Haeghen, Repertoire des droits intellectuals en Belgique (1924) ; Brazil, G. A. Bailly, Protection des Inventions an Brasil (1915) ; France, H. Allart, Traite theorique et pratique des brevets d'invention (191i), E. Pouillet, Traite theorique et pratique des brevets d'invention (1915) ; Germany, H. Jeay, Patentgesetz (19I I). See also Oriental Patents and Trademarks: India and the East (published by Remphy and Son, 1923, etc.).