H—lo

1947 NEW ZEALAND

PATENTS, DESIGNS, AND TRADE-MARKS FIFTY-EIGHTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER

Presented to both Houses of the General Assembly 'pursuant to Section 128 of the Patents, Designs, and Trade-marJcs Act, 1921-22

REPORT

I have the honour, in accordance with section 128, to submit my report on the administration of the Act during the year 1946. The number of applications for the grant of letters patent and for the registration of designs and trade-marks received during the year exceeded, by a substantial margin, the record established in the preceding year. The total of 5,142 is 983 in excess of the number received in 1945, and probably marks the peak of the post-war rush. The fees collected amounted to £18,891, and the surplus of receipts over expenditure was £11,305, which is also a record. Recent official and other publications revealing the details of war production bring into prominence the remarkable advances in science and their application to industrial production for war purposes. Not less remarkable has been the continued development in the application of wartime industrial production to post-war industry. One commentator states that organized scientific research has now become almost a prerequisite to industrial existence. It is recognized that patent and design law covers from 90 per cent, to 95 per cent, of all industrial invention, and the versatility of present-day inventors and designers is well featured in the Supplement to the Board of Trade Journal devoted to the " Britain can make it " Exhibition opened at London on 24th September, 1946. The Journal states — The factory floor was a forcing bed during the war for day-to-day research into the possibilities of new materials, new techniques, and new designs, with the result that British industry gave to our Armed Forces, and to those of our allies, the best weapons that scientific forethought could produce. British scientists were the pioneers of radar and jet propulsion, a British scientist discovered penicillin, and British engineers designed the Bailey Bridge, the oil-pipe line across the Channel, and the Mulberry Harbour, which helped to make possible the invasion of France. Co-operation with the United States resulted in the greatest and most remarkable technological advances the world has yet seen —far beyond that which even twenty-five years ago was thought possible. Included in the numerous wartime developments may be mentioned electric control and measuring devices, and, in the plastic field, bearings, materials, and accessories of almost unlimited application in industry, and combining many qualities such as, for example, those of glass, wood, and metal.