He further submitted in that respect, that the applicant’s goods had been on the Ugandan market
long before this application was brought as stated in paragraph 6 of the amended notice of
motion and annexture “F” to the affidavit in support. Further that the applicant had given an
undertaking to the Registrar and finally, that there was reciprocity between Uganda and China
which is a member state and signatory to the Paris Convention on Protection of Industrial
Properties 1883 whose contents were consolidated in the TRIPS Agreement 1994.
On the contention by the respondent that Hong Kong is separate from China, counsel for the
applicant submitted that Hong Kong is a Special Administrative Region of China, a situation that
is analogous to jurisdictions which have federal arrangements where for protection one needs to
register the mark in all the federal states one wishes to benefit from. He further submitted that
when it comes to International treaties and Instruments under which reciprocity falls, no mention
is made of Hong Kong but China. He contended that whether as argued by the respondent that
mere registration in Hong Kong does not confer entire protection in China mainland that does
not mean that the mark is not from China.
On this issue, counsel for the applicant concluded that the applicant had satisfied the criteria set
out under section 45 (1) for the removal of the respondent’s trademark TECNO from the register
in Uganda.
As regards the second issue, counsel for the applicant referred to section 46 of the Trademarks
Act, 2010 and submitted that the trademark TECNO was registered without a bona-fide intention
of the respondent to use it in relation to the goods in class 9. He pointed out that there was no
definition of the word bona-fide under the Act but referred to the Osborne’s Concise Law
Dictionary 8th Edition at page 52 which defines the word bona fide as “in good faith, honestly,
without fraud, collusion or participation in wrong doing”. He also referred to the Oxford
Advanced Learners Dictionary 6th Edition at page 120 where the word bona fide is stated to be
of Latin origin and means “genuine, real or legal”.
He related this definition to the instant case and contended that the respondent who was neither
an importer of any electronics under the mark TECNO nor a manufacturer of the same knowing
full well the popularity of the TECNO phones in Uganda sought to hoard and exploit that
trademark by registering it before the applicant who was the genuine user did. He further
contended that the respondent had not proved that it had sold any phone upon which it had
affixed its mark TECNO. He submitted that the burden to prove usage of the trademark laid with
the respondent in accordance with sections 101 to 103 of the Evidence Act and section 46 (1) (B)
of the Trademarks Act and this had not been discharged.
He referred to Paragraph 113, Harlsbury’s Laws of England, Volume 48 (2007) Re-issue 2
where it was stated that:“There is „genuine use‟ of a trademark where the trademark is used in
accordance with its essential function, which is to guaranty the identity of the
origin of the goods or services for which it is registered, in order to create or
preserve an outlet for those goods or services; genuine use does not include token
use for the sole purpose of preserving the rights conferred by the mark”: Case C40/01 Ansul BV v Ajax Brandbeveiling BV (2005) Ch 97 (2003) ECR 1-2439,