From The Brewers’ Guardian – Nov. 1883
JAPAN is becoming notorious for the extent to which literary and trade piracies are carried. According to the Japan Gazette the practice of pirating patents, stamps, and labels, in order to palm off spurious imitations for the genuine article, has been carried on for years, and the evil is extending in every direction. Among well-known English labels, that of Bass & Co. has for many years been the subject of innumerable depredations. The striking red diamond and triangle on white ground lend themselves easily to imitation, while to people who cannot read English letters at all, any strange marks below the diamond or triangle are sufficient to represent the names of the eminent brewers. Large quantities of some decoction brewed in Tokyo are thus passed off in the interior as Burton ale.
A patent law is wanted in Japan, not so much for the protection of foreign inventors (the Japanese Government is far too advanced to think of such a minor consideration as this) as for the protection of the pockets and stomachs of the Japanese themselves.
Crescent City Brew Talk 