PATENTS OFFICE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 258, 28 September 1935, Page 11

PATENTS OFFICE

INVENTIONS AND COPYRIGHT. COMMENTS OF COMMISSIONER. (By Telegraph.—Special to Standard.) WELLINGTON, Sept. 27. . _ A phenomenal rise in the number of - ■ inventions relating to telegraphy and i telephony which the New Zealand - Patents Office, noted in 1934 has been ; maintained this year, according to the I latest i-eport. There were 30(3 patents > recorded under this head compared . with 313 in 1933, which was the peak ; year. > . A very interesting general reference ■ i is made by the Commissioner to the world-wide tendency of patents to become “interlocked.” This fundamental i aspect of the matter, he states, is bei coming increasingly important in these days of industrial aggregation, and particularly so at the pesent time in regard to the radio industry, in which considerable inventive and commercial activity is manifest. i “In tin’s connection,” ho continues, “it should be noted that in modern times there is an increasing tendency it. certain classes for patents to become legally and industrially interlocked. Thus we find that although news is ordinarily regarded as belonging to the domain of copyright a strong effort was made at the International Conference for the Protection of Industrial Property, held in London in 1934, to have news included in the convention as being a form of industrial property. On the other hand, persons interested in radio inventions are vitally interested in a proposal that they be made to the International Copyright Conference of 1936 to limit the right of local legislatures to regulate the conditions under which copyright material may be communicated to the general public by radio. Further, we find inventors giving great attention to radio sound films, etc., by means of which copyright material is conveyed from the creator to the consumer. There is also a marked tendency for broadcasting inventions to pass into the hands of large combines and for the owners of inventions to enhance the value of their monopolies by becoming the owners of the correlated copyright. There are thus growing up various powerful groups whose interests in patents and copyright are almost inseparably interwoven. These interests, being purely commercial, do not invariably harmonise with the public interest.” The Commissioner finally suggests 1 that care should be taken that moil- ' opolies granted to foster the public I , wellbeing are not allowed to defeat j their own ends by enriching private enterprise unduly at the expense of the State.