THECUBAREVIEW 15 



TRADEMARK LAWS FAULTY 



MANUFACTURERS CHEATED — TRADEMARKS IN DANGER DESPITE REGIS- 

 TRATION — VIEWS OF AN ATTORNEY 



That adequate protection against the piracy of well-known American trademarks, even 

 when they have been apparently properly registered, has not yet been secured by American 

 manufacturers in Cuba, is well known, and in explanation the following opinion was 

 given recently by Aurelio de Armas, a Cuban patent attorney, in the Washington Herald. 

 He said : "It is not only the failure of our local laws to grant protection to unregistered 

 trademarks, which causes the evil ; but also the particular form in which American trade- 

 marks, as a rule, are registered down there. It makes no difference whether the technical 

 trademark was properly registered or not, inasmuch as the pirates purposelv eliminate it 

 from the registration, in order not to raise suspicion, while preserving and registering 

 other minor elements of a label, which, though actually used by the lawful owner, do not 

 appear in the American certificate of registration. Thus the labels look the same as the 

 genuine, but are not technically the same. 



"An examination of actual facts and the records of registration will show that 90 per 

 cent of the trademarks registered in Cuba for American whisky, food stuffs, toilet arti- 

 cles, drugs, etc., are exposed to similar danger. 



"The fact that the strictly technical element of the trademark is often eliminated by 

 the unfair registrant, which otherwise would attract public attention ; the further fact 

 that the pirate deliberately takes no judicial action to stop the importation of the genuine 

 goods in order both to profit by the legitimate trademark's advertisements and to let 

 'damages' accumulate, which he might, under the peculiar condition prevaiUng, collect 

 from the real owner of a trademark, and lastly, the fact that the enormous bu3'ing ca- 

 pacity of the Cuban people does not allow the reduced sale to be noticed at first — all 

 these contribute to keep the American manufacturer ignorant of what is going on while 

 he thinks himself fully protected under a Cuban registration." 



The pirates do not confine their attention to goods of American manufacture only, but 

 also to the products of other countries. 



These conditions are lamentable and disastrous, to which, according to Mr. de Armas, 

 both the Cuban and the present United States laws contribute. 



The Cuban patent-office officials are praised for doing the utmost within their power, 

 and so far as the letter of the law permits, in order to prevent any attacks or imposition 

 on the part of unscrupulous local dealers. As an example, Mr. de Armas mentioned 

 the case of local druggists who tried to register vaseline, peptonoids and other well-known 

 American proprietary names, in which cases the Cuban patent office, in order to prevent 

 the attempted monopoly, declared said words of free use, which decision, of course, 

 was far from being the Ijest protection the manufacturers would expect. 



Mr. de Armas says that no practical solution will be arrived at, either by means of 

 international conventions or direct treaties, until the American manufacturers and the 

 profession of patent agents have a full and exact understanding of the Cuban laws and 

 actual conditions of the trade with Spanish-American countries. 



Cuban Motoring Regulations 



Cuba has good motoring laws and those a permit to drive, and are given an identi- 



recently adopted are almost a copy of the fication book to carry with them, in which 



Callan Law in New York. Cuba goes they are fully described as to age, height, 



ahead of that law in some respects, for it etc., and in which they must place a good 



refuses, says the Nezvark (N. J.) Call, "a photo of themselves, as well as their sig- 



driving license to any chauffeur or car nature. This driver's license costs only 



owner who has ever been prosecuted for ninety cents. A fine of $2.5 is imposed for 



reckless driving or for an accident of any failure to obtain this license, and the police 



description. Consequently, everyone driv are very strict. The minimum license fee 



ing a motor car in Havana, and it is in is $15 for a car of 10-horsepower, and $1 



Havana and the neighboring districts that is added to this sum for each additional 



the principal motoring is done, is doubly horsepower, plus 30 per cent of the full 



careful to avoid prosecution." amount of the license. Thus the car 



Another regulation requires "both owner licenses run up into a considerable figure, 



and chauffeur to take both a practical though the fact that practically all of the 



mechanical and oral examination before cars owned in Cuba are foreign in make, 



they can obtain a driver's Hcense. After mostly p;rench, Italian and German, and 



passing this examination they are issued rated low, offsets some of the cost." 



