The question of trade-marks in Chile is attended by the same difficulties which merchants offering goods from manufacturing countries encounter in many young lands where national rights in discoveries and inventions present few home problems. Broadly, Chilean law gives rights in a trade-mark to the first person registering the mark; and it is not unusual for a foreign maker or agent, entering the country with some special product for sale, to find that his emblem has been already registered by some enterprising and unscrupulous person, who must be bought out if any business is to be done by the original owner. Litigation has raged about this matter, but the only safeguard consists in speedy registration in Chile—and all other parts of the Americas where no international convention is in force—of the trade-marks of any article which is likely to be sent here for sale.
Chile has had a patent law since 1840, but that in force today was decreed by Barros Luco in 1911; it is modelled upon similar laws in other lands, but there is a time limit of two years within which the patent must be “worked.” In practice, however, the patentee as a rule obtains a ten-year extension of the term within which his rights are not liable to forfeit in case no active use is made of them.
The Post Office, Santiago.
Santiago, with the Snow-capped Andes in the Eastern Distance.
Subercaseaux Palace, Santiago.
CHAPTER XI
TRANSPORT SYSTEMS
Railroads.—The Transandine Line.—Sea Transport.—Rivers and Lakes.—Roads.